Enhancing the Resilience of Parents by Understanding Their Perceptions, Behaviour, Attitudes, and Experiences Related to Cancer and Its Treatment of Their Child

This study is to describe the psychosocial well-being and quality of life of Hong Kong Chinese parents of children with cancer with the aim at understanding the needs and concerns of parents, including their perceptions, behaviour, attitudes, and experiences related to cancer and its treatment of their child.

Advances in diagnostic techniques and cancer treatments have yielded remarkable increases in the overall survival rates of children with cancer. Inevitably, however, cancer and its treatments may also have long-term effects on the physical and psychological well-being of children with cancer,

Previous studies revealed that parents play a pivotal role in encouraging their child with cancer to engage in healthy behaviours. It was shown that Chinese parental psychological behaviour and control may influence the psychological well-being of their children. Therefore, a thorough understanding the needs and concerns of Chinese parents, including their perceptions, behaviour, attitudes, and experiences related to the illness of their child is essential to facilitate them to empower their child to fight at every step of the long and difficult cancer journey.

On the other hand, the diagnosis of cancer not only undermines children themselves in physical and psychological, but also it brings overwhelming psychological distress for these children's parents. An increasing number of studies have examined patients' resilience in adaptation to cancer. Assessing resilience in parents of children with cancer is crucial for a thorough understanding of their responses to stress and adversity, which is an essential prerequisite for the design of an appropriate psychological intervention to enhance their resilience and foster the development of their coping mechanisms and positive psychological well-being. Nevertheless, the resilience levels and its influencing factors among parents of children with cancer in Hong Kong have never been studied.. Further qualitative and quantitative analyses are necessary to thoroughly explore the relationships between resilience and its influencing factors from a culturally specific perspective, with the goal of developing interventions to promote resilience that are applicable to the Hong Kong Chinese population.

A sequential mixed methods design will be used with a quantitative study (Phase I) will be first conducted and followed by a qualitative study (Phase II). The reason for that the quantitative findings will provide a general understanding of the psychosocial well-being and quality of life of Hong Kong Chinese parents of children with cancer. The qualitative findings and the analysis will help to explain the quantitative findings by exploring the perceptions, behaviour, attitudes, and experiences related to cancer and its treatment of their child.

Eligibility Criteria:
Inclusion Criteria:

* the primary caregiver, either father or mother,
* ability to speak Cantonese and read Chinese-language materials,
* having a child aged 0-16 years and diagnosed with cancer at some time in the previous month and currently undergoing active treatment

Exclusion Criteria:

* Parents with chronic illness and cognitive or learning disorders