Family Resiliency In Childhood Cancer

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Discovering that a loved one has been diagnosed with cancer can be the most difficult news to process. Cancer can affect the family in an emotional way. Knowing that someone they love is going through so much pain and not knowing how to fix it is also painful. In order to get through such a hard time, families need to find different ways to cope. Even though dealing with someone you love who has cancer can be an emotional experience, families can cope with it through counseling, support, and education. Counseling helps by having someone to talk to about your feelings towards this, support helps by having someone to rely on for anything, and education helps because learning more about cancer can help you prepare for what happens next. These …show more content…

In the article Family Resiliency in Childhood Cancer by Marilyn McCubbin, Karla Balling, Peggy Possin, Sharon Frierdich and Barbara Bryne, a study was performed to illustrate how families handle this situation. The study is based on interviews from 42 parents in 26 families with a child that has cancer. From the interviews resiliency factors were identified that contributed to helping families recover from this hard time. These factors include support from the health care team, support from extended family, and support from the community. 88% of parents agreed that support from the oncology health care team was a major resilient factor. Families rely on the health care team to provide reassurance and realistic hope, information and assistance, and respect for the parents. One of the mothers from the interviews said that when she asked the doctor or nurse questions they would respond in the kindest and truthful way but that they gave her hope. Families need to know that the health care team is always accessible. A father, from the interviews, said “They [health care team] pushed calling at any time; if you had any questions, call.” This makes families feel secure that someone will always be there to answer any questions. The last thing the health care team provides is respect towards the family. The parents said that the doctors and nurses never made them feel like they weren’t as smart as them and that …show more content…

They provide support through sibling care, transportation, and emotional support. Extended family would stay with the other children when the parents had to be at the hospital. They would provide transportation to school or practices. This support is important because it allows the other siblings to still go on with their daily routines. Also they gave emotional support to the families by aiding them in any way. The families are reassured that there is always someone who will be there for them. The last factor is support from the community. The community supports through child care, financial aid and home maintenance assistance. Some of the parents said that the community helped by providing day care for their other children. Also the community helped financially by making donations and raising money for the families. The last way the community would support is by home maintenance assistance. Neighbors and churches would give the families meals and things they may be needing. These are just some of the ways families cope through support of other people.

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