The Complexity of Being a Parent in the Hospital and a Patient at Home: A Qualitative Study on Parenting Concerns and Challenges Among Parents With Cancer.
Maria Romare Strandh, Emma Hovén, Renita Sörensdotter and 4 others
PMID 37731179WHAT IT FOUND
Parents with cancer put children first, hid distress, felt guilt when fatigue blocked parenting, and feared missing their children's futures.
Ask about parenting role, communication with children, and who can help at home.
Key findings
01Parents with cancer consistently placed their children's interests first, often hiding negative emotions and poor well-being so as not to burden them, which left them feeling alone.
02Fatigue and treatment demands made it hard to meet unchanged parenting expectations, leading to guilt and shame when parents could not be emotionally available.
03Talking with children about cancer was especially hard around prognosis and death, yet parents who communicated openly described positive experiences, found that children appeared to need and appreciate it, and felt less alone when they were open outside the family.
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
The sample was small and homogeneous, mainly Swedish-born mothers in heterosexual partnered relationships, so it may not represent fathers, single parents, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer parents, or parents born outside Sweden. The authors reported that recruiting fathers and other parents was difficult, which limits how widely the themes can be applied. The study did not specifically study the characteristics of the parents' children, so children's own experiences were not directly assessed. The researchers' preconceptions may have shaped the interpretation, and the analysis relied on authors reaching consensus rather than a treatment outcome measurement. Because this was a qualitative study of experiences, it cannot show whether any support, communication, or care-coordination approach improves family well-being.
Declared interests
The research was funded by the Swedish Cancer Society, the Swedish Research Council, and the Centre for Women's Mental Health during the Reproductive Lifespan (WOMHER) at Uppsala University. The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that asking about parenting or providing family communication support improves outcomes. This study described experiences of 22 parents; it did not test an intervention.