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Determinants of parental decisions on ‘drop out’ from cancer treatment for childhood cancer patients
Author(s) -
Yeh ChaoHsing,
Lin ChiouFen,
Tsai JiaLing,
Lai YuMei,
Ku HsuehChen
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
journal of advanced nursing
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.948
H-Index - 155
eISSN - 1365-2648
pISSN - 0309-2402
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-2648.1999.01064.x
Subject(s) - denial , psychosocial , medicine , disease , cancer , childhood cancer , empathy , qualitative research , cancer treatment , health care , drop out , clinical psychology , psychiatry , psychology , psychotherapist , social science , demographic economics , sociology , economics , economic growth
Determinants of parental decisions on ‘drop out’ from cancer treatment for childhood cancer patients Little is known about the psychosocial process of parental decisions on ‘drop out’ from cancer treatment for paediatric patients in Taiwan. This study, based on structured in‐depth interviews, attempted to document the determinants of parental decisions on drop out. A total of 19 parents of paediatric cancer patients who dropped out from a cancer treatment for at least a month within 3 years since first treatment were interviewed. Content analysis of qualitative data revealed six categories of determinants associated with parental decisions: suffering severe pain from medical treatments and adverse side‐effects; desire for better and less painful treatments; adverse effect of other patients’ experiences; searching for possible explanations for disease after prolonged denial of diagnosis; lack of empathy from health care professionals; and misinterpretation of improved prognostics. These findings reflected the deficiency of psychological and emotional support for parents from health care professionals prior to and during cancer treatment.