Psychosocial Consequences and the Effectiveness of Supportively Psycho-Educational Program for Children of a Parent with Cancer

A recently diagnosis of cancer creates multiple problems for parents with cancer. Children and adolescents are especially vulnerable in this situation. Studies have not been conducted to explore psychosocial consequences of patients with cancer and their children. Body-mind-spirit and supportive psycho-educational groups have demonstrated benefit for cancer parent and their children. This 3-year study was therefore designed to be aimed to explore psychosocial consequences of cancer parents and their adolescent children in the first year. In the second year, an integrated parent-child based group program will be developed and conducted. A body-mind-spirit group will be designed for parents with cancer living with biological adolescent children. A supported psycho-educational group will be designed for their adolescent children. The effectiveness of both supportively psycho-educational group and body-mind-spirit group will be evaluated and followed-up in the third year. A quail-experimental with randomized controlled trial study design will be used for this study. A convenient sampling method will be used to recruit 200 pairs of cancer parent and their adolescent children from the cancer centers in medical centers and a local teaching hospital located in Taipei in the first year to identify the psychosocial consequences of patients with cancer and their children. Approximately 20 pairs of parent-child dyad will then be recruited for experimental and control groups in order to conduct intervention groups. Two sets of instruments to measure anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, parent-child relationship, resilience, and spirituality will be used for parent and child, respectively. Results from this study may offer more empirical evidence for conducting supportive groups to facilitate communication between children and parents with cancer and their mental health.