Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 8, 2025

A Quantitative Sensory Testing Paradigm to Obtain Measures of Pain Processing in Patients Undergoing Breast Cancer Surgery
Published on: January 18, 2018
How might cancer patients experience existential guilt? A qualitative research
Moslem Arian1, Mohammad Saeed Khanjani1, Martin Adams2
1Department of Counseling, University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Objectives:
Existential guilt is a deep and multidimensional concept that is correlated with concepts, such as in/authenticity, existential anxiety, decisiveness, and personal and social responsibility. The aim of the present study is to investigate the experience of existential guilt among cancer patients.
Methods:
The present research was conducted with a qualitative method with a content analysis design. A purposeful sampling method was used to select the participants and the sampling procedure went on until we reached data saturation. Data were obtained using semi-structured interviews with the participants.
Results:
From a total of 18 interviews, 94 codes related to existential guilt were obtained. After the analysis, three main concepts were extracted: (1) incompleteness, (2) passivity, and (3) feelings of harm to self and others. Each of these had a number of subcategories.
Significance Of Results:
The participants of the present research were found to experience existential guilt in different ways. The research showed that it is necessary to find the sources of existential guilt in order that effective therapeutic attention can be given cancer patients.
Related Concept Videos
Cancer Survival Analysis
Kubler Ross's Stages of Dying
In denial, individuals reject the reality of their condition, often thinking, "This isn't true; I feel fine," as a way to protect themselves from...
Beck's Cognitive Therapy
Arbitrary Inference
Arbitrary inference involves making conclusions without sufficient...
Nursing Ethical Principles II
Consider the following scenario, which illustrates how these principles are applied in the care of Mr. John, a fifty-year-old teacher diagnosed with metastatic liver cancer.
Initially, Mr. John's...
Ethical Dilemmas II
Erikson's Theory on Socioemotional Development during Adulthood
Intimacy Versus Isolation in Early Adulthood
Individuals in early...

