ABSTRACT
For cancer patients, radiation therapy is a close encounter of a third kind, an entrance into a new and intangible world of physics and radiobiology, a stop-off, an exit. And still the threat of death remains alive. In an attempt to understand this experience and thereby to better serve the needs of the patients undergoing radiation therapy, we devised a questionnaire designed to elicit patient's attitudes and feelings about radiation therapy as an entity apart from other existing and prevalent modes of cancer treatment. Fifty patients were randomly selected to represent the three periods of treatment: preradiotherapy, in which the patient is evaluated for possible radiotherapy; the interim period during which the patient is receiving radiotherapy; and post-radiotherapy when the therapy has been completed and the patient is returning for follow-up examinations. Patients will readily use the word cancer, but they are not yet ready to make an association between their bodies, their beings, and the disease.
