Exploratory Study of Alienation in Hospitalized and Nonhospitalized Clients with and without Cancer

摘要

This study examined the responses of 64 subjects to two subscales of the Belcher Extended Loneliness Scale (Belcher, 1973) that measured both internal and external aspects of alienation. Four equal groups of subjects were selected: hospitalized with cancer; nonhospitalized with cancer; hospitalized without cancer; nonhospitalized without cancer. The purpose was to study differences and patterns in the alienation scores reported by subjects in the four groups. The secondary goal was to explore the potential that the anlysis of the concept of alienation has for improving the care of clients with cancer. Seven hypotheses were proposed. The first three hypotheses proposed that subjects who have cancer will report higher scores on three separate measures of alienation (external, internal and a combined score of the two measures) than subjects without cancer. The next three hypotheses proposed that subjects who are hospitalized will report higher scores on separate measures of alienation (external, internal, and a combined score of the two measures) than subjects not hospitalized. The seventh hypothesis proposed a difference among the four groups of subjects based on their total (external plus internal) scores. The first six hypotheses were supported by mean scores for external, internal, and combined scores. The seventh hypothesis failed to be supported at p < 0.05 for a two-factor analysis of variance for the total (external plus internal) scores and the variables of cancer and hospitalization.