Purpose:

Research has shown that a child's knowledge about what is happening to a parent when he/she has a cancer disease is crucial to the child's health and wellbeing. Therefore the purpose of this study was to explore parents’ perceptions of how nurses in clinical practice care for children as relatives when one parent in the family has a cancer disease.

Method:

A qualitative explorative design with interviews was used. Altogether 28 parents (17 patients and 11 partners) were interviewed. The transcripts from the interviews were subjected to qualitative content analysis.

Results:

The parents perceive that the nurses make efforts to support the child as well as them as parents, but feel that the care needs to be more tailored to the specific child and his/her situation. The children are initially invited, generally informed and seen by the nurses, but the parents perceive that they themselves need repeated support and advice over time to uphold their parental responsibility for caring for their children during the illness trajectory.

Conclusion:

The parents argue for the importance of receiving repeated advice and support for how to talk to their children about the disease and treatment. The parents describe how the nurses were helpful by asking after the children and explaining the value of their visiting the hospital.