Malignant fungating wounds: an analysis of the lived experience

This paper reports upon a study that aimed to illuminate the meaning and experience of living with a malignant fungating wound.

The current understanding of living with a malignant fungating wound is derived from professionals' rather than the patient's perspective. An appreciation of the lived experience may assist in the development of more empathetic support approaches.

A Heideggerian hermeneutic phenomenological approach was used as the philosophical framework. Unstructured interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of five participants. Content hermeneutic analysis was adopted to analyse the data.

Four themes were identified: representing the worst part of the patient's cancer; living within a body that cannot be trusted; a changing relationship with the patient's family and friends; and a loss of identity while continuously striving to be normal, yet feeling different.

Health care professionals must possess a heightened awareness of: the importance of the impact of the wound upon day-to-day living, identity and purpose; the value of adopting the phrase used by the patient to describe their wound; and to focus more upon the subjective meaning of a visibly changing wound rather than objective measurement.