Section Medical Psychology, Leiden University Medical Center, PO Box 9600, 2300 RC, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Support Care Cancer. 2021 Aug;29(8):4375-4380. doi: 10.1007/s00520-020-05920-0. Epub 2021 Jan 8.
Novels and autopathographies that employ cancer as a central theme offer a wealth of opportunities for researching the way patients with cancer make sense of their illness and its treatment. Such literatures can also inform clinical care, because they can support patients in living with their illness. The use of novels and autopathographies for research and care in persons with cancer fits within the framework of 'Health Humanities', the interdisciplinary field where medicine and social science meet. This paper presents a concise overview of novels and autopathographies that explore cancer as their theme.
Literature searches were conducted using PubMed, major scientific journals of medicine and clinical oncology, and databases in the Health Humanities. Searches focused on novels and autopathographies where cancer is the central theme, which are available in English, and which can be considered to represent 'high literature'.
Twenty-nine books were identified. The majority of the books were written originally in English, and breast cancer and lung cancer were the most frequently discussed types of cancer. The core themes identified were giving meaning to illness; coping with medical treatment; and the psychological and social consequences of illness.
Novels and autopathographies about cancer represent an innovative base for research on living with cancer and offer rich data on how people make sense of cancer and its medical treatment. Clinical implications of this review pertain to interventions based on bibliotherapy and expressive writing. Novels and autopathographies are just part of the Health Humanities context: a wide range of art genres may prove helpful in improving the quality of life of persons with cancer.
以癌症为主题的小说和自传为研究癌症患者如何理解疾病及其治疗方法提供了丰富的机会。这些文学作品也可以为临床护理提供信息，因为它们可以帮助患者与疾病共存。将小说和自传用于癌症患者的研究和护理符合“健康人文学科”的框架，这是医学和社会科学交汇的跨学科领域。本文简要介绍了以癌症为主题的小说和自传。
使用 PubMed、主要医学和临床肿瘤学期刊以及健康人文学科数据库进行文献检索。搜索重点是癌症为主题的小说和自传，这些作品必须以英文出版，并且可以被认为是“高级文学”。
共确定了 29 本书。这些书中的大多数都是英文原著，讨论最多的癌症类型是乳腺癌和肺癌。确定的核心主题包括赋予疾病意义、应对治疗和疾病的心理和社会后果。
关于癌症的小说和自传为研究癌症患者的生存提供了一个创新的基础，并提供了丰富的数据，说明人们如何理解癌症及其治疗方法。本综述的临床意义涉及基于阅读疗法和表达性写作的干预措施。小说和自传只是健康人文学科背景的一部分：广泛的艺术体裁可能有助于提高癌症患者的生活质量。
