Analysis of the Hope for the Mothers with Cancer Children

암 환아 어머니의 희망 분석

The goal of this study was to develop a method to measure the degree of hope of mothers whom their children have cancer. Data collection was held on 144 mothers who had their children diagnosed as cancer, and were treated in C hospital and S hospital located in Seoul. The data was collected from January to August of the year 1999, and collected data was then computerized for T-test, factor analysis and ANOVA. The results are as follows: 1) The measurement method used to measure the degree of hope was divided into 7 categories and composed of 35 questions in total. The level of confidence was 0.90. The 7 categories were named 'gaining insight into life', 'realizing oneself's own role in life', 'attempting a change in life', 'taking in destiny', 'having trust in the treatment being held out by the medical faculty', 'recognizing or escaping from reality' 'obtaining support from religion' respectively. 2) The average score of mothers with cancer children was 3.22. The 6th category 'recognizing or escaping from reality', had the highest score and the 1st category of 'gaining insight into life' the lowest. 3) The degree of hope did not have any differences according to the general characteristics of the children with cancer and the characteristics of the disease. However there was a difference following the characteristics of the mothers with cancer children. Mothers with jobs tend to have scored higher compared with mothers without any occupation.