Dr Margo Turnbull

Objectives This study explored how end-of-life (EOL) care practitioners in Hong Kong engaged in emotional labor while fulfilling their professional roles in a Chinese cultural context.

Methods A sequential explanatory mixed-methods design was employed. A quantitative survey (n = 32) using validated scales that measured emotional job demands and emotional labor strategies was followed by in-depth interviews (n = 11) with EOL care practitioners from diverse disciplines. Survey data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, while interview transcripts underwent thematic analysis.

Results EOL care practitioners reported high emotional job demands, with deep acting being their preferred emotional labor strategy over surface acting. Three key themes emerged related to: (1) balancing emotional involvement and professional boundaries; (2) employing strategic emotional engagement; and (3) navigating cultural beliefs and family dynamics. This multidisciplinary workforce developed sophisticated practices to manage their emotions authentically while establishing protective psychological boundaries. These practices integrated the provision of emotional support with the navigation of tensions between Chinese cultural values and professional responsibilities.

Significance of results This study used mixed-methods to explore how traditional values were integrated into the everyday care practices of EOL practitioners in Hong Kong. The findings contribute to an innovative and culturally sensitive framework for exploring emotional labor in EOL care contexts. This is useful in both Chinese and multicultural care contexts.

Background Uncertainty, when perceived as a danger, can severely undermine a cancer patient’s recovery, resilience, and quality of life. Managing this uncertainty is therefore vital to well-being. While research on uncertainty and coping is growing, little attention has been given to vulnerable groups, such as migrant domestic workers (MDWs). Therefore, this study explores how Indonesian MDWs in Hong Kong experience and navigate the uncertainties arising following cancer diagnosis.

Method This qualitative study is based on semi-structured interviews with 12 Indonesian MDWs diagnosed with cancer or being under observation due to suspicion of cancer (e.g., having cysts or lumps) in Hong Kong. The participants were selected by using a combination of purposive and snowball sampling. The interviews conducted in Bahasa Indonesia were audio-recorded, transcribed, translated into English, and analyzed employing reflexive thematic analysis.

Results Our analysis, focusing on personal uncertainty, showed two primary forms: psychosocial and existential. Our participants managed these through four strategies, particularly reducing threatening uncertainty, maintaining uncertainty perceived as comfortable, increasing uncertainty to avoid distressing certainty, and adapting to chronic uncertainty.

Conclusion Their narratives of experiencing and managing uncertainty reveal resilience and a quiet strength that restored hope and agency amid adversity. These findings highlight how structural inequities shape illness experiences and point to the need for equity-oriented cancer care for migrant workers.

Background Communication is crucial across all stages of cancer diagnosis, treatment, and recovery. However, engaging in consistently high levels of interpersonal communication can generate additional burdens for people with cancer. Despite increasing rates of diagnosis in Asia and the dominance of intraregional migration for employment, limited research has focused on the cancer experiences of migrant women. This article presents a unique study of communication ‘work’ done by female Migrant Domestic Workers (MDWs) diagnosed with cancer in Hong Kong.

Methods Qualitative data were collected between June and December 2023 through semi-structured interviews with 22 MDWs from the Philippines who were diagnosed with cancer in Hong Kong. Data were analyzed using the Integrative Theory of Communication (ITC). This framework examines communication in relation to: information and instruction work, emotion work, identity work, relational work, and articulation and coordination work.

Results Results indicated that MDWs engaged in all types of communication work described in the ITC. Each type of communication was uniquely shaped by their position as MDWs in Hong Kong with specific links to their relationship with their employer, the precarious nature of their employment, and comparisons of oncology services available in Hong Kong and the Philippines.

Conclusions Our study highlights how interpersonal communication is complicated by migrant status, the intersection of individuals’ multiple identities, and family financial vulnerability. These factors increased the complexity of MDWs’ efforts to manage relationships, financial responsibilities, and employment to maintain access to treatment, placing a greater physical and emotional burden on them during treatment and recovery.

This article presents the narrative analysis of interview data collected from 15 migrant domestic workers (MDWs) from the Philippines who were diagnosed with breast cancer in Hong Kong. The analysis draws on a social constructionist understanding of identity as multiple and performed through language, communication, and social interaction to explore how these MDWs narrated their cancer experiences and changing identities as they worked to incorporate serious illness into their lives as MDWs. The narratives of these MDWs highlight their multiple and changing identities as they move and communicate across places, systems of migration and networks of relationships.