[Qualitative and collaborative research with cancer patients. Experience narratives of treatments for peritoneal carcinomatosis]. / Une recherche qualitative et collaborative auprès de patients atteints de cancer. Récits d'expérience des traitements de la carcinose péritonéale.

UNLABELLED: This CORCAN study is concerned with the way patients hospitalised for peritoneal carcinosis perceive surgical treatment and hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC). OBJECTIVES: (1) To identify and analyse, using concepts of social representation and accounts of the illness, characteristics of the way this treatment is experienced; (2) to inform doctors and healthcare workers about patients' representations, with a view to adjusting the treatment, the care and the information given to patients. METHODOLOGY: Fifty-eight directive and nondirective interviews were conducted longitudinally with 21 patients (13 women and 7 men) hospitalised for treatment by cell killing and HIPEC. RESULTS: Five important elements of concern were raised and discussed by the patients at different stages of the disease, then reported and discussed with the doctors and healthcare workers. These were patients' experiences of: the hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC), randomisation, intensive care, the effects of surgery on the digestive system, reorganising their diet, and returning home.