School of Psychology, Western Sydney University, Sydney, Australia.
Research, Policy & Patient Department, Canteen Australia, Sydney, Australia.
Support Care Cancer. 2024 Jun 4;32(7):409. doi: 10.1007/s00520-024-08608-x.
To explore the resources, parents with cancer and their partners draw upon to sustain their family resilience through the cancer experience.
Fifteen participants who were parents of children aged 8 to 25 years completed phone, audio-recorded, and semi-structured interviews. Of these participants, 11 were parents diagnosed with cancer, and four were partners of a parent diagnosed with cancer. Interview questions aimed to increase understanding about how families communicate, connect, and face challenges from the cancer experience. Interview data was analysed using inductive thematic analysis to provide scope to generate themes from parent's experiences rather than to test pre-existing frameworks.
The thematic analysis of interview transcripts generated three key themes related to family resilience: (1) adaptability to changes in roles and routines, (2) open communication within the family, and (3) accepting support from others.
This study found that parents' ability to use personal resources when faced with significant challenges helped to improve the resilience of parents' family system. Further research is needed to understand the factors that influence family resilience when a parent is diagnosed with cancer. Implications for the development of targeted interventions that provide support to not only the patient, but their whole family system will be discussed.
探索癌症患者父母及其伴侣在癌症经历中利用资源来维持家庭韧性的方式。
15 名参与者完成了电话、录音和半结构化访谈。其中 11 名参与者是 8 至 25 岁儿童的父母，4 名是癌症患者父母的伴侣。访谈问题旨在增进对家庭沟通、联系和应对癌症经历挑战方式的理解。采用归纳主题分析对访谈记录进行分析，以便从父母的经验中生成主题，而不是测试预先存在的框架。
对访谈记录的主题分析生成了与家庭韧性相关的三个关键主题：（1）适应角色和日常生活的变化，（2）家庭内的开放沟通，（3）接受他人的支持。
本研究发现，父母在面临重大挑战时运用个人资源的能力有助于提高其家庭系统的韧性。需要进一步研究了解当父母被诊断患有癌症时影响家庭韧性的因素。将讨论为不仅为患者，而且为整个家庭系统提供支持的针对性干预措施的发展提供启示。
