Parents’ Educational Needs whose Children Suffer from Cancer

Introduction: Poor parental knowledge regarding to the diagnosis, treatment and care of children and adolescents with cancer seems to affect their quality of life negatively. Therefore, it is of great importance for the parents to gain the required level of knowledge, as well as to assess their educational needs in order to provide the proper care for their ill children. Aim: The purpose of this systematic review of the international literature was to highlight and record the educational needs of parents of children and adolescents with cancer regarding the information they have and/ or need to acquire about the disease, treatment, complications and prognosis, as well as to examine the factors that affect these needs. Methodology: International bibliography was searched on the electronic databases PubMed, Cinahl and Scopus with the following keywords: education, family needs, educational needs, pediatric cancer and parents. The review included studies involving parents of children (≤ 18 years old) with cancer and investigating the educational needs of parents. Moreover, the studies were primary, published from 01/01/2014 to 31/12/2019 and written in English or Greek language. Results: The review included 9 studies, of which 3 were cross-sectional, 3 qualitative, 2 intervention studies and 1 mixed method. The parental sample ranged from 8 to 209 parents. Parents needed multifaceted information regarding diagnosis, treatment, medical care and information about the child's and family's psycho-emotional adjustment. It was also found that nurses play an important role in parental education. Conclusion: The recognition of educational needs is particularly important to provide effective and comprehensive parental information and is therefore a key factor in the success of treatment.