Poster Presentation 2025 Joint Meeting of the COSA ASM and IPOS Congress

How Does Childhood Cancer Affect Romantic Relationships and Marriage among Young Adult Survivors in South Korea?   (124717)

Kwonho Choi 1 , Min Ah Kim 2 , Jimin Sung 3 , Hyo Jeong Park 1 , Jung-Won You 4
  1. School of Social Welfare, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, South Korea
  2. Department of Social Welfare, Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul, South Korea
  3. School of Social Work, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
  4. School of Sociology, Hanyang University, Seoul, South Korea

Objectives/purpose

Childhood cancer experiences can have long-term impacts in later life, particularly when navigating romantic relationships and marriage. This study explored how childhood cancer experiences influence perceptions of romantic relationships and marriage among young adult survivors in South Korea.

Sample and setting

Through purposive sampling, 14 young adults (eight women, six men) diagnosed with childhood cancer before age 19 were recruited from survivor support groups. Participants’ ages ranged from 20 to 27 years. Average age at diagnosis was 13.7 years and average time since diagnosis was 8.6 years, spanning 3 to 24 years. Most participants had been diagnosed with leukemia, followed by lymphoma.

Procedures

One-hour semistructured in-depth interviews were conducted with each participant about perceived challenges and needs regarding romantic relationships and marriage. Thematic analysis identified nine subthemes within three overarching themes.

Results

The first theme involved prioritizing career development over romantic relationships and marriage because of feeling behind compared to peers and unprepared for financial independence. The second theme addressed a lack of confidence to form romantic relationships due to treatment-related appearance changes, health concerns and relapse, and limited social skills. The third theme related to barriers to maintaining romantic relationships and complicated feelings about marriage, such as stigma related to cancer history; anxiety about sexual intimacy, pregnancy, and fertility; and concerns about the possibility of passing the disease to children.

Conclusion and clinical implications

This study highlighted the complicated impacts of childhood cancer on intimate relationships among young adults in South Korea. Educational programs that inform later-life effects of cancer treatment related to fertility and psychosocial interventions that address anxiety and concerns related to forming romantic relationships among young adult survivors of childhood cancer are needed.