Transforming a Face-to-Face Legacy Intervention to a Web-Based Legacy Intervention for Children With Advanced Cancer

Area of Science:

• Palliative Care
• Digital Health Interventions
• Pediatric Oncology

Background:

• Traditional face-to-face interventions for pediatric palliative care face recruitment limitations.
• Previous work developed a promising but limited face-to-face digital storytelling intervention.
• There is a need for accessible, cost-effective, and acceptable web-based palliative care delivery methods.

Purpose of the Study:

• To systematically develop a web-based legacy intervention for children (7-17 years) with relapsed or refractory cancer.
• To assess the feasibility and acceptability of this novel web-based intervention among children and their caregivers.
• To gather parent feedback for future enhancements of the intervention.

Main Methods:

• Systematic development process for a web-based legacy intervention.
• Recruitment of children (7-17 years) with relapsed/refractory cancer and their parent caregivers.
• Collection and analysis of parent satisfaction survey data (n=81).

Main Results:

• The web-based legacy intervention was found to be feasible and acceptable to parents.
• Parents reported perceived beneficial outcomes for the child, parent, and family.
• Parent suggestions were collected to inform future development.

Conclusions:

• Web-based interventions are a viable platform for delivering palliative care to pediatric populations.
• This study provides a foundation for developing theoretically grounded web-based interventions in palliative care.
• The intervention has the potential to reduce suffering in seriously ill children and their families, advancing symptom management science.