Culinary medicine for caregivers: protocol for a mixed-methods feasibility study to improve pediatric cancer patient and caregiver outcomes through nutrition and culinary support.

Introduction: Pediatric cancer and its treatment can negatively affect nutritional status, impacting treatment tolerance, survival, and overall well-being. Poorly managed side effects often lead to lasting poor dietary habits. Caregivers, who bear the psychosocial burden of these effects, are also at risk for diminished health. Interventions that support caregivers' capacity to provide quality care while maintaining their own health are critically needed. Culinary medicine interventions have shown promise in improving cooking confidence, dietary quality, and symptom management. We developed an 8-week culinary medicine intervention, including caregiver coaching, to support pediatric cancer patients and their caregivers.

Methods: Let's Cook Together is designed to increase caregivers' knowledge of a whole foods dietary approach, improve caregiving preparedness, and boost self-efficacy in managing treatment side effects. Caregivers with children undergoing cancer treatment will be recruited from the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. The program includes four remote, biweekly cooking sessions led by a medical chef educator and a registered dietitian nutritionist, along with alternating coaching calls focused on caregiving goals and challenges. Participants will also receive written nutrition and cooking resources. This is a single-arm, explanatory sequential mixed-methods feasibility study. Quantitative assessments will be conducted at baseline, post-intervention, and 3-month post-intervention; qualitative interviews will follow the intervention. The primary objective is to assess feasibility and acceptability. Secondary objectives include collecting exploratory outcome data on caregiving preparedness, caregiver self-efficacy, pediatric feeding behaviors, and dietary intake to inform the design and sample size calculations for a future trial and to identify potential signals of intervention effect.

Discussion: Results will inform refinement of the intervention and study design and guide the development of a future trial. Findings may be relevant to oncology and allied health professionals involved in supportive care for families navigating pediatric cancer treatment.

Trial registration:  ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT06523322, Registered 22 July 2024, https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT06523322 .