Understanding fear of cancer recurrence in terms of damage to 'everyday health competence'

Abstract

Advances in clinical treatments are resulting in cancer patients living longer, but with the threat of the disease returning at some later date. Anxiety associated with this fear of recurrence, which seems widespread among patients, can lead to an enhanced bodily awareness and a pronounced tendency to interpret mundane sensations as symptoms of pathology. Relatively little sociological work has been done to systematically document, understand, and find ways of addressing, this syndrome and its impact on the quality of patients' lives. It is argued that this syndrome is best understood not in cognitive terms, as a form of irrationality, but rather as resulting from damage to certain aspects of social competence, namely one's 'everyday health competence'. In investigating this issue, the author draws upon his personal experience of breast cancer diagnosis, surgery and adjuvant therapy; and on a broadly phenomenological approach to examining the relationship between bodily sensations and practical reasoning about experience. The implications for clinical practice are considered briefly. © 2011 The Author. Sociology of Health & Illness © 2011 Foundation for the Sociology of Health & Illness/Blackwell Publishing Ltd.