The PIFBO-study: Person-centred Information to Parents in Paediatric Oncology

BACKGROUND

Parents of children with cancer have great information needs and report that these are not always met. Psychosocial suffering such as stress and anxiety is also common in this group.

INTERVENTION

The intervention in this study builds upon the representational approach for patient education. It emanates from Leventhal's theories about illness representation and educational theories about conceptual change. Central elements in the approach are parental choice of information topics of interest, and a thorough assessment of present parental knowledge before information is given. Each parent in the intervention arm gets four sessions with an intervention nurse.

DESIGN AND METHODS

The study comprises a multi-centre randomized controlled trial with two parallel arms with a 1:1 allocation ratio. One arm will receive the intervention and the other standard care according to local routines at each ward. The effect will be measured with validated instrument which are answered on a web platform. Complementary to the quantitative evaluation, we will perform a process evaluation aiming at understanding the change mechanisms, treatment fidelity, dose delivered, contextual factors of importance and how the intervention further could be optimized.

Inclusion criteria

Being a parent of a child that

• is diagnosed with a first time occurrence of a malignancy that is curatively treated and
• was diagnosed two months ago.

Further parents must be

• able to talk, read and write Swedish enough to be able to participate without an interpreter.

Exclusion criteria

• None specific.