Impact of childhood cancer on healthy school-age siblings

One part of a study on the effects of childhood cancer on families focused on the emotional reactions of school-age siblings. The authors identify themes in the siblings' feelings taken from transcripts of interviews with them. Responses were categorized as experience of diagnosis and hospitalization; awareness of prognosis and mortality; need for information; continuing effect of disease or death on the well child; correct understanding of cancer; and hopes and desires for the future. The responses were grouped either in a sibling with a living child category or sibling with a deceased child category. From their analysis, the authors present implications for nurses' interactions with these children: children's need for information; their feelings of being displaced and unimportant; need for encouraging involvement in the life of the ill child. The authors also identify additional questions that could direct future nursing research.