Other Titles
Rising Star Poster/Presentation
Abstract
In 2023, roughly 9,000 children less than 15 years of age were diagnosed with cancer in the United States. This suggests that approximately 18,000 parents were caring for a child newly diagnosed with cancer. In this informal caregiving role, parents’ roles double as both parent to their child and serving as their healthcare advocate. Studying the parent caregiving perspective can provide valuable insights for the professional health care team to guide their practice. The purpose of this project was to characterize the symptom management and caregiving experiences of parents of school-aged children diagnosed with cancer. The project was a secondary analysis of the qualitative data collected during the content validity phase of developing two self-report instruments addressing parents’ management of their child’s symptoms. Twenty-one parents (17 mothers; median age 40 years) participated. Twenty parent interview transcripts and written responses to content review surveys were included in this data analysis. A total of 101 excerpts were extracted from this larger data set and analyzed using qualitative content analysis. After coding the data, 9 categories were identified and included: medication management, access to information and resources, access to person-based support, experience of managing and adapting, emphasis on the child response, parents’ emotional and cognitive responses, discerning and managing psychosocial symptoms, developing individual strategies, and uncertainty/lack of control. This secondary analysis provides valuable insights for professional staff to enhance their practice to better support parents as part of caring for the child. This information can enhance clinical communication, aid in access to both informational and psychosocial resources, understanding of the emotional toll of the parent experience, and the differentiation between types of symptoms.
Notes
References: Editorial Team. (2023, January 12). Key Statistics for Childhood Cancers. American Cancer Society. https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/cancer-in-children/key-statistics.html
Sigma Membership
Gamma Rho
Type
Poster
Format Type
Text-based Document
Study Design/Type
Other
Research Approach
Qualitative Research
Keywords:
Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, Clinical Practice, Childhood Cancer, Parental Caregivers
Recommended Citation
Flowers, Sofia, "The Parent Caregiving Experience of School-Aged Children With Cancer" (2025). Biennial Convention (CONV). 77.
https://www.sigmarepository.org/convention/2025/posters_2025/77
Conference Name
48th Biennial Convention
Conference Host
Sigma Theta Tau International
Conference Location
Indianapolis, Indiana, USA
Conference Year
2025
Rights Holder
All rights reserved by the author(s) and/or publisher(s) listed in this item record unless relinquished in whole or part by a rights notation or a Creative Commons License present in this item record. All permission requests should be directed accordingly and not to the Sigma Repository. All submitting authors or publishers have affirmed that when using material in their work where they do not own copyright, they have obtained permission of the copyright holder prior to submission and the rights holder has been acknowledged as necessary.
Review Type
Invited Presentation
Acquisition
Publisher-submission
Date of Issue
2025-12-09
Funder(s)
University of Utah, Huntsman Cancer Institute
The Parent Caregiving Experience of School-Aged Children With Cancer
Indianapolis, Indiana, USA
In 2023, roughly 9,000 children less than 15 years of age were diagnosed with cancer in the United States. This suggests that approximately 18,000 parents were caring for a child newly diagnosed with cancer. In this informal caregiving role, parents’ roles double as both parent to their child and serving as their healthcare advocate. Studying the parent caregiving perspective can provide valuable insights for the professional health care team to guide their practice. The purpose of this project was to characterize the symptom management and caregiving experiences of parents of school-aged children diagnosed with cancer. The project was a secondary analysis of the qualitative data collected during the content validity phase of developing two self-report instruments addressing parents’ management of their child’s symptoms. Twenty-one parents (17 mothers; median age 40 years) participated. Twenty parent interview transcripts and written responses to content review surveys were included in this data analysis. A total of 101 excerpts were extracted from this larger data set and analyzed using qualitative content analysis. After coding the data, 9 categories were identified and included: medication management, access to information and resources, access to person-based support, experience of managing and adapting, emphasis on the child response, parents’ emotional and cognitive responses, discerning and managing psychosocial symptoms, developing individual strategies, and uncertainty/lack of control. This secondary analysis provides valuable insights for professional staff to enhance their practice to better support parents as part of caring for the child. This information can enhance clinical communication, aid in access to both informational and psychosocial resources, understanding of the emotional toll of the parent experience, and the differentiation between types of symptoms.
Description
This secondary analysis characterized the caregiving experience of 20 parents of school-aged children diagnosed with cancer. Interview and free text survey responses were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. The parent cancer caregiving experience entails balancing strategies, flexibility, symptom management, and managing their own responses to the child’s diagnosis while advocating for and raising their child.