How Culture Impact On Saudi Arabian Women s Perception Of...

This chapter presents the methodology and research methods used to explore how culture impacts on Saudi Arabian women’s perception of survivorship following treatment for breast cancer. First, the epistemological paradigm and the theoretical perspectives that guide the research process are described. The chapter includes the research methods (research’s question, aim and research design), followed by describing the interviews, sampling and the process of recruitment. Finally, data collection, management and analysis are explained. Methodology: 3.1 Epistemological perspective: The constructivist paradigm emerged from the phenomenological philosophy of Husserl and other German philosophers who studied the interpretive understanding or meaning called ‘hermeneutics’ (Dowling, 2007). A constructivism paradigm rejects the objective reality that can be known by the researcher through scientific inquiry which is dominant in other paradigms such as post-positivism (Gray, 2014). According to constructivism paradigm the reality is socially constructed (Mertens, 2005), which means that the reality as meaning and value are subjective and experiential which are created not discovered. This thesis proposes that the meaning of being a breast cancer survivor is mainly constructed by breast cancer survivors themselves, who are the only ones to know the experience of breast cancer from diagnosis until survivorship, and what it feels like. In terms of practice, this paradigm concerned with