The Experience of Uncertainty in Young Adults With Cancer
Bibliographic record
Abstract
In Brief The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to describe the experience of uncertainty in young adults with cancer. A purposeful sample of 6 young adults between the ages of 19 and 30 years undergoing chemotherapy treatment was recruited. Participants were interviewed twice using semistructured interviews. The investigators used constant comparison to examine the content of the transcript for common words, phrases, statements, or units of text that related to uncertainty. Findings revealed 3 major emerging themes. The first one being "types of uncertainty," which includes uncertainty and efforts at the right place, uncertainty and aspects of treatment, uncertainty and personal abilities, and uncertainty and the feasibility of plans related to life goals. Uncertainty was also found to trigger the development of certainties, which led to the second theme, "certainties: helpful or not?" A third emerging theme, dealing with uncertainty, described a variety of strategies used by young adults that included living on a day-to-day basis, being selfish, believing, getting information, trusting the physician, concentrating on positive things, keeping energy by pacing oneself, choosing social support, and trying to live a normal life. A consequence of dealing with the uncertainty and the cancer journey is the "enlightened path." It emerged and revealed how the cancer journey changed their lives. A number of implications for nursing practice therefore warrant consideration, especially fostering a sense of normalcy by identifying common behaviors, feelings, or needs among these young adults with cancer. Sharing this information and facilitating interactions with other young adults with cancer has the potential to promote coping with uncertainty. The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to describe the experience of uncertainty in young adults with cancer. A purposeful sample of 6 young adults between the ages of 19 and 30 years undergoing chemotherapy treatment was recruited. Participants were interviewed twice using semistructured interviews. The investigators used constant comparison to examine the content of the transcript for common words, phrases, statements, or units of text that related to uncertainty. Findings revealed 3 major emerging themes. The first one being "types of uncertainty," which includes uncertainty and efforts at the right place, uncertainty and aspects of treatment, uncertainty and personal abilities, and uncertainty and the feasibility of plans related to life goals. Uncertainty was also found to trigger the development of certainties, which led to the second theme, "certainties: helpful or not?" A third emerging theme, dealing with uncertainty, described a variety of strategies used by young adults that included living on a day-to-day basis, being selfish, believing, getting information, trusting the physician, concentrating on positive things, keeping energy by pacing oneself, choosing social support, and trying to live a normal life. A consequence of dealing with the uncertainty and the cancer journey is the "enlightened path." It emerged and revealed how the cancer journey changed their lives. A number of implications for nursing practice therefore warrant consideration, especially fostering a sense of normalcy by identifying common behaviors, feelings, or needs among these young adults with cancer. Sharing this information and facilitating interactions with other young adults with cancer has the potential to promote coping with uncertainty.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.005 | 0.010 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.005 | 0.005 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.004 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".