Interventions to improve illness-related communication between cancer patients and their minor children: A systematic review

Background

Parental cancer conditions significantly impact the physical, social, and emotional well-being of minor children. Effective illness-related communication is crucial for both parents and their children to mitigate these effects.

Objective

To systematically summarize the characteristics and effectiveness of interventions aimed at improving illness-related communication between parents with cancer and their minor children.

Design

A systematic review.

Data sources

Six databases (CINAHL, Web of Science, PubMed, Embase, the Cochrane Library, and PsycINFO) were searched for articles published in English between 2000 and 2023.

Methods

A three-step review process was employed to select articles. Two reviewers independently screened titles and abstracts, reviewed full texts to include studies aimed at facilitating illness-related communication between parents with cancer and their minor children under the age of 18, and assessed study quality using the Joanna Briggs Institute critical appraisal checklist.

Results

The search yielded 9409 articles, of which 21 met the inclusion criteria, 4 were randomized controlled trials and 17 were quasi-experimental studies. These studies involved 213 families, 149 parents, and 192 minor children. The interventions were categorized as family-centered, parent-centered, or children-centered and emphasized disease knowledge, communication skills, emotional management, and future planning in illness-related communication. The synthesized results indicate that family-centered interventions show unique advantages in improving family life; parent-centered interventions bring benefits in enhancing parenting quality, parents' self-efficacy in coping with cancer, and children's social behavior; and children-centered interventions exhibit a significant impact on the psychological well-being of children.

Conclusion

Parent-centered interventions demonstrated significant potential in promoting illness-related communication, particularly by emphasizing the patient's parental role, enhancing intrinsic motivation to sustain communication, and recognizing that patients themselves may be more suitable targets for clinical oncology practice. High-quality research is recommended to enrich the content of parent-centered interventions and encourage the measurement of intervention effects on communication as well as the mechanism of action.

Registration number

The review protocol was registered in PROSPERO under the number CRD42023478107.