Concept Analysis of Suffering in Parents of Children with Cancer

Background: The concept of suffering is fundamental when dealing with life-threatening diseases like cancer, affecting both patients and their families. However, this concept has not been thoroughly examined in nursing culture. Therefore, this study aimed to analyze the concept of suffering among parents of children with cancer. Methods: Walker and Avant’s eight-step method was used to analyze this concept. The literature review was conducted using Google Scholar, Ovid, Medline, and CINAHL databases from 2000 to 2022 focusing on suffering, conceptual analysis of suffering, and cancer and suffering as keywords. Results: Initially, 138 articles were obtained. After reviewing the articles and eliminating the irrelevant ones, 47 articles were deemed pertinent for further analysis. Among these, 10 articles directly related to the topic of suffering in families due to cancer were chosen as the basis for concept analysis. Conclusion: The analysis of the concept of suffering in parents of children with cancer involved choosing the concept, defining the purpose of analysis, identifying all potential uses of the concept, describing its attributes, presenting a model case, determining borderline, related, contrary, and unrelated cases, identifying antecedents and consequences (preliminaries and delays), and detailing empirical referents.