Development and Testing of Truth-Telling Communication Skill Training for Pediatric Cancer

The number of children with cancer is rising year by year. However, attention has not been paid to truth-telling communication skill training (CST) for pediatric cancer. To date, the CST has not been designed internationally for truth-telling of pediatric patients with cancer. Therefore, the author’s motivation to conduct this study was triggered. The purpose of this 3-year study is to develop and test the effectiveness of truth-telling CST for pediatric cancer. The author intends to use triangulation by combining qualitative and quantitative methodologies to achieve the research purpose. The author will enroll pediatric patients with cancer (acute lymphoid leukemia, brain tumor, and lymphoma), their parents, and medical and nursing personnel at various institutions as the research subjects to conduct this study. The objective in the first year is to explore truth-telling preferences for pediatric cancer patients and their parents. The researcher will use purposive sampling and conduct qualitative focus group interviews with pediatric patients with cancer and their parents to understand their preferences for truth-telling. Data collection and content analysis will be performed concurrently, and the enrollment is not terminated until data saturation is reached. The objectives in the second and third years are to develop an educational model suitable for pediatric cancer truth-telling and to test the effectiveness of the CST for medical and nursing personnel, pediatric patients with cancer, and their parents. The author will conduct a one group pre and post experimental study to collect important subjective (self-confidence and ability of truth-telling, patients and their parents’ emotional distress and their quality of life) and objective data (hospice shared care referral rate & medical expenditure) to achieve the research purposes. The research results are expected to have a positive effect on pediatric patients with cancer, parents, and medical and nursing personnel, improve the hospice shared care referral rate of patients with pediatric cancer, and reduce the medical expenditure of pediatric patients with cancer.

Project ID:PF10901-1817
External Project ID:MOST108-2511-H182-005-MY2