Engaging in Palliative Care Conversations With Healthcare Providers: A Phenomenological Young Adult Cancer Study

What is it like for young adults living with metastatic/advanced cancers to engage in conversations about palliative care with healthcare providers? Often, young people are not introduced to palliative care. Instead, healthcare providers may assume that they are already well-supported, that their symptoms are aptly managed, or that introducing palliative care will somehow spoil any remaining hope they live with. While some of the benefits of palliative care have been explored in the literature, the experiences of young people living with metastatic/advanced cancers as they are introduced to these conversations have largely been ignored. Drawing on interviews with young adults, the aim of this study was to gain insights into these experiences. From their reflections, we may understand these conversations as an experience of an opening for talk, conversations as an experience of need and relief, and conversations as an experience of reflection. Having a discussion about palliative care may serve as a conversational opening not only to discuss additional support, but also to explore that which is meaningful for them as they live with serious illnesses. We may appreciate at the heart of these conversations are physical, relational, and existential needs that may be relieved by palliation. Significantly, these conversations afford personal reflections and frank discussions of dying and death. In this way, a phenomenological understanding of palliative care conversations provides healthcare providers with reflective insights and practical considerations for approaching these important conversations with young people, recognizing that the conversations themselves may be deeply personal and decidedly individual.