Supervisors info:
Περδικάρης Παντελεήμων, Επίκουρος καθηγητής , Τμήμα Νοσηλευτικής, Πανεπιστήμιο Πελοποννήσου
Κουτελέκος Ιωάννης, Επίκουρος καθηγητής, Τμήμα Νοσηλευτικής, Πανεπιστήμιο Δυτικής Αττικής
Μοσχόβη Μαρία, Αναπληρώτρια Καθηγήτρια , Τμήμα Ιατρικής, Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών
Summary:
BACKGROUND: A cancer diagnosis in a child and its subsequent treatment are particularly stressful for parents. At the same time, the children are among the groups of patients who cannot meet their own information needs and are dependent on their families.Educating parents about the child's diagnosis and treatment plan helps to relieve their uncertainty and anxiety, as well as to take care of their child at home.
AIM: The purpose of this systematic review of the international literature was to highlight and record the educational needs of parents of children and adolescents with cancer regarding the information that they have and / or need to acquire about the disease, treatment, complications and prognosis, and to examine the factors that affect these needs.
METHODOLOGY: International bibliography was searched on the electronic databases PubMed, Cinahl and Scopus with the following keywords: education, family needs, educational needs, pediatric cancer and parents.The criteria for selecting - excluding articles were: (1) studies on parents of children < 18 years of age with a confirmed cancer diagnosis, (2) studies to identify the educational needs of parents with children with cancer, (3) the outcome of the studies should be the educational needs and the improvement of the provided care and of the quality of life of parents and the children, (4) the studies should be primary and be published from 01/01/ 2014 to 31/12/2019 and written in English or Greek
RESULTS: From the search of the international literature, 255 studies emerged, 9 of which were included in the review. Three of the studies were cross-sectional, 3 qualitative, 2 intervention studies and one mixed method. The parental sample ranged from 8 to 209 parents. Parents needed multifaceted information regarding diagnosis, treatment, medical care, and information about the child's and family's psycho-emotional adjustment. One study found that parents had a lack of knowledge about catheter-related infections and were unaware of the symptoms of the infection. It was also found that nurses play an important role in parental education.
CONCLUSIONS: The recognition of educational needs is particularly important to provide effective and comprehensive parental information and is therefore a key factor in the success of treatment.
SUBJECT AREA: Cancer of childhood
Keywords:
Childhood cancer,Educational needs, information needs, parents,
