Beyond adherence: Experiences shaping engagement with oral anticancer medication among immigrant patients with haematological malignancies and limited dominant-language proficiency.

Abstract

Background: Immigrant patients with limited dominant-language proficiency may face intersecting challenges when navigating cancer care and long-term oral anticancer treatment. Although studies have reported lower medication adherence among migrant and ethnic minority populations, less is known about how migration-related, linguistic, experiential and contextual factors shape treatment engagement from patients’ own perspectives. This study explored how immigrant patients experience illness, navigate treatment and engage with oral anticancer medication within the broader context of cancer care. Methods: Thirteen immigrant patients with limited dominant-language proficiency receiving oral anticancer medication for haematological malignancies were recruited from the haematology outpatient clinic of a Belgian university hospital. Semi-structured interviews were conducted in participants’ native languages using an adapted version of the McGill Illness Narrative Interview, with professional interpreters or intercultural mediators. Interviews were analysed using inductive reflexive thematic analysis within an interpretivist framework. Results: Analysis of patients’ illness narratives generated five experiential dimensions: 1) bodily, biographical and identity rupture; 2) temporal disruption and uncertainty; 3) linguistic vulnerability shaping the illness experience; 4) meaning-making and explanatory frameworks; and 5) resources sustaining treatment engagement. Linguistic vulnerability shaped access to biomedical knowledge, participation in healthcare encounters and patient autonomy, while patients mobilised personal, relational, existential, linguistic and institutional resources to sustain treatment continuity. Treatment engagement emerged as a dynamic and relational process embedded within broader migration-related, linguistic and healthcare contexts. Rather than representing fixed determinants or sequential stages, the five dimensions formed an evolving configuration whose relative salience varied throughout the illness trajectory. Conclusion: This study proposes a multidimensional interpretive model of engagement with oral anticancer medication among immigrant patients with limited dominant-language proficiency. Rather than conceptualising adherence as an isolated individual behaviour, the findings show how migration-related contexts shape the conditions under which treatment engagement becomes possible, difficult or fragile. By foregrounding immigrant patients’ lived experiences, the study identifies experiential, linguistic, relational and structural dimensions of cancer care that are difficult to capture through behavioural adherence measures alone and offers insights for more equitable, context-sensitive and patient-centred oncology care.