Living with Malignant Wound in Cancer Patients and Adolescents with Non- Cancer Diagnosis: a Meta-Synthesis of Qualitative Studies

Malignant wound causes a devastating physical and psychological condition in cancer patients. This study presents a review which can provide better insights into the life of cancer patients living with malignant wound. The aim of this meta-synthesis was to analyze and synthesize findings from qualitative studies of the lived experiences of patients with malignant wound.
This meta-synthesis followed the Sandelowski and Barroso’s guideline and was designed to synthesize findings from previous qualitative studies. Variety of biomedical archives were searched, including PubMed, Web of Science, PsycINFO, Cochrane library, and ProQuest and Persian data bases such as Magiran, SID, Iran.doc, IranMedex, and recently published articles and books on the lived experience of persons living with malignant wound were reviewed. In this article, the literature searches covering from January,1, 1990 to march,15, 2016 resulted in eight relevant studies which fulfilled the inclusion criteria for the review.
Findings from all these studies were categorized into three main themes: "distortion of lived body", "symptomatic suffering", and "compatible living with wound". Our findings showed that the meanings of patients’ experiences living with malignant wound are important for the construction of multidisciplinary palliative care in these individuals.
Gaining insights from analysis of qualitative studies is integral issue for developing new palliative care services for patients with malignant wound.