| dc.description.abstract | Children undergoing treatment for cancer often receive chemotherapy or radiation therapy and may experience many symptoms linked to these treatments. This study examined complementary therapies and self-care or dependent-care methods used by pediatric patients and parents to alleviate symptoms during cancer treatments. The specific purposes of this study were to assess symptoms and the complementary therapies and self-care or dependent-care methods used by pediatric patients and parents during cancer treatments. Orem’s self-care/dependent-care concept was used to guide the analysis of the care pediatric patients received. Secondary analysis was done on data collected from a cross-sectional, multi-site study in the Midwestern and Southwestern USA. The sample included 92 parents/children ages 1-17 years old; 52% were females; 16 were less than 5 years old; 53 were 5-11 years old, and 23 were 12-17 years old. Of the cancer diagnoses reported, 56% had leukemia and 44% had other cancer types. The 30-item Therapy-Related Symptom Checklist for Children (TRSC-C) was used to record patients’ symptom occurrence and severity on a 5-pt scale (0, no symptom; 4, “A whole lot”). The Symptom Alleviation: Self-Care Methods (SA:SCM) tool was used to identify methods parents used to alleviate therapy-related symptoms. To address the study purposes, descriptive data and content analyses were conducted. Symptom occurrences of 19 symptoms were reported by 40% or more of the patients and had a mean severity of “2” or “Quite a bit.” The top five symptoms included nausea, feeling sluggish, hair loss, loss of appetite and vomiting. Of the six categories of self-care or dependent-care methods and complementary therapies, four were found useful; herbal treatments were not mentioned. The two categories most utilized were Prescribed Medications and Mind Body Control. Assessing patient-reported and parent-reported symptoms and the use of self-care and dependent-care methods and complementary therapies help parents cope and help their children. | en |
