Breast cancer in the family - children’s perceptions of their mother’s cancer and its initial treatment: qualitative study.
The Ashley Charitable Trust was introduced to Gillian Forrest – a Senior Research Fellow in the Section for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Park Hospital for Children and Alan Stein - Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
The Ashley Charitable Trust provided funding for Gillian and her colleagues to undertake a study to explore the accounts of mothers with breast cancer and their children to identify children’s awareness and understanding of their parent’s cancer, their reactions to being told about the diagnosis and the different types of treatment, what information they would have liked to have been given and appear to need. To also contrast the children’s and mother’s accounts to highlight area where their perspectives differ.
Mothers were sourced to take part through the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals Jane Ashley Unit at the Churchill Hospital.
Participants included 37 mothers with early breast cancer and 31 of their children aged between 6 and 18 years. Approval for the research project was given by the Ethics Committee, Oxford University and Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals Trust.
Study results
There was an existing awareness of cancer as a life-threatening illness even amongst most of the children interviewed. Children described specific aspects of their mother’s treatment as especially stressful (seeing her immediately post-operatively, chemotherapy and hair loss). Children suspected something was wrong even before they were told of the diagnosis. Parents sometimes misunderstood their children’s reactions, and underestimated the emotional impact or did not recognise the children’s need for more preparation and age-appropriate information about the illness and treatment.