Applying the Caring Life-Course Theory to Explore Prostate Cancer Survivors’ Care Needs, Care Trajectories, And Self-Care Behaviors: A Qualitative Study

Objectives: This study applied the Caring Life-Course Theory to explore how men treated for localized prostate cancer with radical prostatectomy experience, interpret, and respond to their care needs pre- and postsurgery. The study aimed to examine how their self-care behaviors are shaped over time by individual, relational, and systemic factors.

Methods: Longitudinal semi-structured interviews were conducted with six participants at two time points: one week before and 12 weeks postsurgery. Secondary thematic analysis was conducted using the Caring Life-Course Theory as a guiding framework, with a focus on identifying care needs, care trajectories, and self-care behaviors across pre- and post-treatment periods.

Results: Participants engaged in self-care largely out of necessity, often without structured guidance or follow-up. Care needs were biographical and relational as well as physical, but these dimensions were rarely addressed in formal care planning. Masculine norms influenced help-seeking while access to informal support networks were critical in framing recovery experiences.

Conclusions: The Caring Life-Course Theory provides a valuable lens for understanding how self-care behaviors and care trajectories unfold over time in men with prostate cancer. Survivorship care should more intentionally and consistently assess self-care capability and capacity, elicit biographical information, and engage informal support networks.

Implications for Nursing Practice: Nurses are well-positioned to lead biographically and relationally informed survivorship care planning. Expanding access to specialist cancer nurses or patient navigators, integrating structured self-care assessments, biographical inquiry, and social network mapping, as well as fostering multidisciplinary coordination, can improve the delivery and personalization of survivorship care.