Barn med kreft: Informasjon til foreldre og deres møte med helsepersonell

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to study how parents of children with cancer experience the information that is given and their relation to health professionals treating their child.

When a child or a youth has a serious illness, the parents’ daily lives are also affected. The parents need and require information of how to handle the child’s illness and the reactions of the child, other family members and the parents themselves. Cancer among children and youth often expose their parents to several stress factors.

This study is made by applying qualitative research method. It has been conducted four in-depth interviews with parents of children who have completed treatment for cancer.

The results show that the parents were mostly satisfied with the received information. The parents in the study expressed a demand and need to be better prepared, both in terms of possible side effects and to be able to prepare their child.

The connection with health professionals were experienced by the parents as good, better with some than others. The results also show that parents found that the child received good treatment and was well taken care of. My findings suggest that parents think that they needed their own consultations with health professionals, but the most experienced having to ask for it themselves.

The areas that were experienced as stressful during the child's illness were patient surveys, waiting for test results and the fear of recurrence and late effects of the disease. The parents felt that they handled the challenges of the child's illness well, and they were surprised by their own capabilities related to the child's illness.

Hensikten med denne masteroppgaven er å kartlegge foreldre til kreftsyke barns opplevelse av informasjon og deres møte med helsepersonell.

Alvorlig sykdom hos et barn har innvirkning på foreldrenes hverdag. Foreldrene har behov for informasjon om hvordan de skal håndtere barnets sykdom, sine egne, barnets og øvrige familiemedlemmers reaksjoner. Kreftsykdom hos barn kan medføre mange stressfaktorer for foreldrene.

Det er anvendt kvalitativ metode med dybdeintervju av 4 foreldre til barn som er ferdigbehandlet for kreftsykdom.

Resultater viser at foreldrene stort sett var fornøyde med den informasjonen de fikk. Foreldrene i undersøkelsen opplevde at de hadde behov for å bli bedre forberedt, både med tanke på mulige bivirkninger og for å kunne forberede barnet sitt.

Kontakten med helsepersonell opplevde foreldrene som god, og bedre med noen enn andre. Resultatene viser også at foreldrene opplevde at barnet får god behandling og blir godt ivaretatt. Mine funn tyder på at foreldrene syntes de hadde behov for egne samtaler med helsepersonell, men at de fleste opplevde å måtte be om det selv.

De områdene som opplevdes som stressende etter barnets sykdom var polikliniske undersøkelser, venting på prøvesvar og engstelse for residiv og senskader av sykdommen. Foreldrene opplevde at de håndterte nye utfordringer etter barnets sykdom, og de var overrasket over sine egne ressurser i forbindelse med barnets sykdom.