Edinburgh Napier University

  The idea of studying the coping of cancer patients began when the author was working in the oncology ward of an acute hospital in Hong Kong. With the purpose of understanding the coping process of Chinese women with breast cancer and exploring the factors affecting their use of coping strategies, the effects of coping strategies on outcome, changes in coping across time, and cultural characteristics, the author adopted grounded theory methodology, which is philosophically rooted in symbolic interactionism. This chapter describes the mechanism of psychological adjustment through which the women adopted different modes of coping and completed acceptance work in the appraisal process, sustaining work in the controlling process, and integration work in the assimilation process. It explains the three levels of sampling procedures namely open sampling, relational and variational sampling, and discriminate sampling, which are directed by the logic and aim of the coding procedures.