Department of Health Sciences and Health Policy, University of Lucerne, Lucerne, Switzerland.
Childhood Cancer Research Group, Danish Cancer Society Research Center, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Psychooncology. 2019 Jun;28(6):1207-1226. doi: 10.1002/pon.5088. Epub 2019 May 8.
Taking care of children diagnosed with cancer may have considerable consequences on parents' socio-economic situation. Our systematic review aimed to evaluate and synthesise the evidence on the impact of childhood cancer on parents' socio-economic situation.
Systematic literature searches for articles published between January 2000 and January 2019 were performed in PubMed, Scopus, and PsycINFO. Findings of eligible articles were narratively synthesised and quality appraised.
Our systematic review included 35 eligible articles. Childhood cancer had a substantial impact on parents' socio-economic situation across all studies. This impact varied largely by geographical region. We observed a high prevalence of disruptions in parental employment such as job quitting or job loss, particularly among mothers. The associated income losses further contributed to families' perceived financial burden in addition to increased cancer-related expenses. Adverse socio-economic consequences were most pronounced shortly after diagnosis, however, persisted into early survivorship for certain groups of parents. We identified families of children diagnosed with haematological cancers, younger age at diagnosis, and lower parental socio-economic position to be at particular risk for adverse socio-economic consequences.
Following the child's cancer diagnosis, parents experience a broad range of adverse socio-economic consequences. Further effort is needed to systematically implement an assessment of financial hardship in paediatric oncology together with appropriate support services along the cancer trajectory.
照顾被诊断患有癌症的儿童可能会对父母的社会经济状况产生重大影响。我们的系统评价旨在评估和综合有关儿童癌症对父母社会经济状况影响的证据。
在 PubMed、Scopus 和 PsycINFO 中进行了 2000 年 1 月至 2019 年 1 月期间发表的文章的系统文献检索。对合格文章的研究结果进行了叙述性综合和质量评估。
我们的系统评价包括 35 篇合格文章。所有研究均表明，儿童癌症对父母的社会经济状况产生了重大影响。这种影响因地理位置而异。我们观察到父母就业中断的发生率很高，例如辞职或失业，尤其是母亲。相关的收入损失除了增加癌症相关费用外，还进一步加重了家庭的经济负担。不利的社会经济后果在诊断后不久最为明显，但某些群体的父母在早期生存期间仍持续存在。我们发现，被诊断患有血液癌的儿童、诊断时年龄较小和父母社会经济地位较低的家庭面临着不利的社会经济后果的风险特别大。
在儿童癌症诊断后，父母会经历广泛的不利社会经济后果。需要进一步努力，在儿科肿瘤学中系统地实施经济困难评估，并在癌症病程中提供适当的支持服务。
