Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed existing racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, geographic, and gender disparities in cancer care and highlighted the need for more research in understudied populations. No studies have elucidated the experience of women living on the Texas-Mexico border receiving cancer treatment during the pandemic. This study explored the lived experience of receiving cancer treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 for women living on the Texas-Mexico border and identified participants' self-identified unmet needs while receiving cancer treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic on the Texas-Mexico border. Following IRB approval and informed consent, ten women living on the Texas-Mexico border who received cancer treatment in El Paso, Texas, during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 were interviewed using a semi-structured guide. A hermeneutic phenomenological design following the van Manen approach within a framework of intersectionality for data collection and analysis was utilized. The themes of loneliness/isolation, unrelenting expectations, life/healthcare in a border community during COVID-19, and challenges and coping with cancer during COVID-19 characterized the lived experience. Participants’ unmet needs were identified. Evidence of forms of oppression and discrimination related to gender and living and receiving healthcare on the Texas-Mexico border was acknowledged. The exploration of the lived experience of receiving cancer treatment as a woman on the Texas-Mexico border during the COVID-19 pandemic can be used as the foundation for quantitative studies and interventions targeted at improving oncology care, addressing the unmet needs produced by the COVID-19 pandemic in this specific population, and in policy changes for future pandemics.
Date of publication
Summer 8-2024
Document Type
Dissertation
Language
english
Persistent identifier
http://hdl.handle.net/10950/4736
Committee members
Dr. Beth Mastel-Smith; Dr. Theresa Byrd; Dr. Jacqueline Jones; Dr. Barbara McAlister
Degree
PhD in Nursing
Recommended Citation
Castañeda, Kayla E., "WOMEN'S EXPERIENCE OF CANCER TREATMENT DURING COVID-19 ON THE TEXAS-MEXICO BORDER" (2024). Nursing Theses and Dissertations. Paper 145.
http://hdl.handle.net/10950/4736