View clinical trials related to Parents of Children With Cancer.
Filter by:This pilot study aimed to determine the feasibility and effectiveness of an auricular acupressure intervention on sleep, mood state, and QOL among parents of children with cancer.
Cancer is a leading cause of death for children. With the increasing incidence of childhood cancer, the mental health problems emerge in those parents struggle with their children's life-threatened disease. Caring for children with cancer is described as life-changing experience and overwhelming stress for parents. Many studies have been conducted to screen the psychological distress for these parents and found a considerable percentage of them suffering from depressive symptoms. Poorer quality of life was also found in parents of children with cancer when compared to parents of children without cancer. Additionally, parental distress interacted with children's emotions and could have detrimental effects on children's both physical and mental health. Therefore, it is important to take measures improving the mental health for parents of children with cancer. Although current various psychological interventions illustrated small to moderate improvements of mental health for parents of children with cancer, the total effect base on a systematic review was not statistically significant. The purpose of these interventions was predominantly to treat negative mental health problems such as depression and no recognized effective psychological interventions were available for parents of children with cancer until now. Along with the paradigm shift from problem-oriented approach to nurturing strengths in the post-modern period, instead of exclusively treating mental health problems, researchers payed more attention to positive therapy such as resilience promotion program. Resilience usually refers to the ability to adapt adverse conditions and maintain positive status. Resilience studies are mounting since the flourishing of positive psychology movement and meaningful results were gained from corresponding intervention program concentrating on resilience promotion in adolescent education, handling chronic disease and recovery of breast cancer. However, there is a lack of targeted resilience promotion program for parents of children with cancer. The results of our pilot study showed low levels of resilience in parents of children with cancer and strong associations among parental resilience, quality of life and depression. It indicates that the increase in resilience can benefit for the mental health of parents. Therefore, a resilience promotion program will be conducted to examine efficacy for parents of children with cancer.
Background: - Serious illnesses like cancer or Neurofibromatosis Type 1 (NF1), can cause high levels of stress in a family. When a child is diagnosed with cancer or NF1, parents face numerous stressors, each of which can strain relationships. Many parents struggle to effectively cope with the changes in parenting roles that often accompany treatment of childhood cancer or NF1. How parents cope with this stress can influence whether the relationship is strengthened or weakened. Stress levels can also affect the care of the child who has cancer or NF1. Researchers want to better understand the critical time points and events during the child s treatment when the relationship becomes most stressed and/or strengthened. Objectives: - To study how stress affects the relationship between parents who have a child with cancer or Neurofibromatosis Type 1 (NF1). Eligibility: - Parents of a child (between 1 and 24 years of age) who has been diagnosed with cancer or NF1. - Participants must have been in a partnership at the time the child was diagnosed with cancer or NF1. At least one of the parents must be a biological or legal parent of the child. Design: - Participants will fill out a questionnaire either online or by paper and pencil. It will take about 20 minutes to complete. The questions ask about the experience of dealing with a child s cancer OR NF1 diagnosis and how it affects participants relationship with their spouse/partner. - Some participants will also have an in-depth interview. It will last about an hour. It will ask further questions about the cancer OR NF1 diagnosis and treatment and its effect on the relationship. - Treatment will not be provided as part of this study.