Introduction

Since antiemetics have become more effective, it seems plausible that patients nowadays expect less emesis than in the past. To gain a deeper understanding of the patients’ caring needs during emetogenic chemotherapy used today, the aim was to describe patients’ experiences of chemotherapy-induced emesis and how it afects quality of life, daily life, and work. Further, to describe views of the signifcance of their treatment expectations and the communication with the health care personnel when undergoing chemotherapy for cancer.

Methods

Fifteen patients (median age 62 years, n=1 man and n=14 women, with breast (n=13) or colorectal (n=2) cancer), undergoing adjuvantor neo-adjuvant highly or moderately emetogenic chemotherapy were interviewed individually. The data were then analyzed using inductive thematic analysis.

Results

Three themes described the patients’ experiences: ”The whole life gets affected, or goes on as usual”, covering descriptions of how some patients experienced the emesis to limit their everyday lives, while others experienced no emesis at all or had found ways to manage it; ”Information is important for creating expectations, but experiences even more”, i.e., the patients expressed that they wanted all the information they could get about possible adverse efects from the treatment, even though they believed previous experiences to be more important than information for creating expectations about treatment outcomes. Overall, the participants described satisfaction with their antiemetic treatment; and ”Meet me as I am”, including the participants expressed being seen as a unique person to be the of utterly importance. It creates trust in the health care personnel and a feeling of safety and security in the situation.

Conclusions

These findings underline the importance of person-centered care ands upport in creating positive treatment expectations. Future research is welcomed regarding potential antiemetic efects of positive communication, strengthening positive treatment expectations during emetogenic chemotherapy