Holistic suffering in patients with cancer: A qualitative study informed by descriptive quantitative assessment

To explore how holistic suffering manifests and is experienced by adults with cancer through qualitative inquiry, supported by descriptive quantitative assessment.

This qualitatively driven study combined semi-structured interviews with embedded descriptive quantitative data from the Suffering Pictogram-Brazilian version (SP-BR). A total of 222 adults with cancer completed the SP-BR, and a subsample of 20 participated in interviews. The qualitative component had methodological priority and underwent thematic analysis; SP-BR scores were analyzed descriptively to contextualize self-reported levels and dimensions of suffering.

Overall suffering was moderate (mean=4.44, standard deviation=3.22), with substantial variability; worry and physical discomfort were the most prominent concerns. Thematic analysis revealed 4 interrelated themes: Disruption of the self and the search for meaning after diagnosis; Anchoring suffering: faith, relationships, and the ambivalence of coping; Concealed suffering and the fragile work of acceptance; and Meaning as responsibility: enduring suffering for oneself and others. Suffering coexisted with adaptive processes, including meaning-making, relational commitment, and spiritual coping. Spirituality and social support functioned both as protective resources and, in some cases, as mechanisms for concealing distress.

Holistic suffering in cancer is an integrated, dynamic experience that can be understood as a nonlinear existential trajectory, in which participants moved back and forth between disruption of the self, the anchoring of faith and relationships, emotional concealment, and meaning-making. The proposed interpretive model synthesizes this trajectory and may serve as a conceptual starting point for designing interventions addressing holistic suffering.