Coping and adjustment for cancer children and their parents

In Taiwan, recent advances in biomedical science and technology have evolved pediatric cancer from an inevitably fatal illness to a life-threatening illness. Due to the dramatically improved survival rate of pediatric oncology patient, an increasing number of studies have focused on the adjustment and coping abilities of pediatric oncology patient and their parents. In terms of the increasing survival of children with cancer, psychosocial services have become a well-established aspect of comprehensive cancer care in western countries. However, such services are still lacking in Taiwan. Without data to support the understanding of coping and adjustment for children with cancer and their parents, as well as the importance of psychosocial care for this population, we are at a substantial disadvantage in promoting psychosocial care in current health care system in Taiwan. In addition, our preliminary works have shown that parental responses to care for a cancer child are different from the findings of western countries. Thus, directly applying the theoretical work on coping progress and adjustment from western countries findings to Taiwanese children with cancer and their parents is questionable and may be resulted in lacking clear identification of the theory or assumptions underlying their selection to measure coping and adjustment. Therefore, the objectives for this five-year project are (1) to develop measures of parental adjustment and child's coping for children with cancer, (2) to build on our preliminary findings to develop a clinical useful model of the coping processes and adjustments for children with cancer and their parents. Our aim is to identify concepts that will be based on child- and parents-derived experience. In order to discover the meaning of parental adjustment and child's coping grounded to the perspectives of parents and children with cancer, a grounded theory will be conducted. Once the concepts establish, methodological triangulation (the use of qualitative and quantitative research approaches) will be then used to develop measures of parental adjustment and child's coping and be evaluated for reliability and validity. In order to establish the model of Coping Process and Adjustment for children with cancer and their parents, concept analysis and theory analysis will be used to comprehensively compare the literature with the study findings from the Specific aim 1 and our previous work. The ultimate goal of the project is to develop a clinically useful model when nurses care for children with cancer and their parents for providing high quality care.

Project ID:PG9705-0062
External Project ID:NHRI-EX97-9302PI