Antecedents
According to Walker and Avant, antecedents are events that must occur or characteristics
that must be in place prior to the occurrence of the concept. While each factor in each
category is not essential for self-advocacy to occur, each factor does influence the extent to
which one can become a self-advocate. While survivors may come to their cancer
experience possessing these characteristics, skills and resources, many of these antecedents
can also be learned or improved over time (Walsh-Burke & Marcusen 1999). Antecedents of
self-advocacy recognized in the literature include three categories of resources that support
the self-advocacy process: