Cancer patients frequently experience anorexia and cachexia-related distress. Loss of appetite, altered dietary habits, and weight loss generate psychosocial stress that affects both patients and family members, potentially straining family relationships. In Taiwanese culture, which emphasizes food as fundamental to life, diet encompasses not only physiological nutrition and caloric intake but also embodies family consciousness, religious rituals, love, and care—carrying multiple psychosocial and spiritual meanings that influence cancer adaptation for patients and their cohabiting families.
This study aimed to: (1) explore how cancer survivors and their familys perceive and interpret diet, nutrition, and weight changes related to cancer cachexia during treatment; (2) understand how patient-family relationships and interactions are influenced by these cachexia-related phenomena and their interpretations.
Using purposive sampling, we recruited cancer survivors who completed treatment. Semi-structured interviews were conducted, audio-recorded with informed consent, transcribed verbatim, coded, and analyzed using Amedeo Giorgi's descriptive phenomenological methodology, which encourages researchers to transform and synthesize participants' essential meanings through psychological theory.
Seventeen interviews were completed with seven cancer survivors accompanied by family members. One participant withdrew post-interview, leaving 16 interviews for analysis. Participants' post-treatment periods ranged from 1-18 years. Five themes emerged: adherence to medical advice and trust in healthcare, sense of meaning, family consensus and support, dietary autonomy, and connection with bodily sensations.
Interview findings differed from researchers' clinical impressions. Participants consistently reported light diets, avoiding eating out, following medical advice, and rejecting folk remedies and health supplements. This may reflect recall bias given most participants completed treatment over ten years ago, attitude transformation through long-term adaptation, sample homogeneity from hospital-based recruitment, or survival advantage among patients with such dietary attitudes. Future research should examine patients during active treatment to better understand dietary issues across cancer stages, facilitating culturally appropriate holistic care services for Taiwan.