Longitudinal Analysis of Parent Communication Behaviors and Child Distress during Cancer Port Start Procedures.
Jinbing Bai, Kristen M Swanson, Felicity W K Harper and 2 others
PMID 29503218WHAT IT FOUND
Across repeated cancer port starts, parents showed some clear nonverbal caring changes, and children’s distress observed on video tended to fall.
Most parent verbal behaviors did not show a clear change. This was observation, not a tested coaching method.
Key findings
01Over repeated port starts, parents showed significant changes in some nonverbal behaviors, including eye contact, closeness, comforting, and less availability.
02Children’s verbal and behavioral distress showed a decreasing trend from the first to the third port start.
03Most parent verbal communication behaviors did not differ significantly over time, and a separate median comparison found no significant change in parent behavior medians.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
Only families who had baseline data and at least two port-start visits were included, and port starts under 3 minutes were excluded. The study did not examine whether parent gender, child gender, parent positive or negative feelings, or other factors changed the pattern. It coded child distress but not children’s coping or resilience after parent behaviors. It did not analyse how parent communication behaviors and child distress interacted over time. The study was observational and did not test an intervention, so it cannot show that coaching parents improves outcomes. Many children had local anesthetic and repeated procedures, so the study cannot separate parent behavior from familiarity, anesthetic, or other care.
Declared interests
No conflicts of interest or funding statement appears in the supplied text. Publication types list research support from NIH and non-U.S. government.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that parents' nonverbal caring caused children's distress to fall. The study observed both separately and did not test an intervention or analyse how parent behaviors and child distress interacted.