Australian Hospital-Based Parenting Support for Adults with Incurable End-Stage Cancer: Parent Perspectives

Area of Science:

• Oncology
• Palliative Care
• Family Medicine

Background:

• Hospital healthcare routinely overlooks the parenting support needs of patients with incurable end-stage cancer (IESC) and their young families.
• The experiences and specific support requirements of these families within hospital settings remain largely undocumented.
• Existing healthcare models often fail to integrate comprehensive parenting support into cancer care pathways.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore hospital-based parenting support from the perspectives of patients with IESC and their co-parents.
• To understand how parenting experiences and support needs influence the delivery of care.
• To identify barriers and facilitators to effective parenting support within a hospital context.

Main Methods:

• Qualitative, exploratory, prospective, and cross-sectional study design.
• Semi-structured in-depth interviews conducted with eight adult patients diagnosed with IESC and four co-parents.
• Participants were purposively recruited from a tertiary hospital in Melbourne, Australia, and data were thematically analyzed.

Main Results:

• Parents with IESC expressed a strong desire for support with complex, multidimensional parenting issues.
• Organizational, health professional (HP), and parental factors were identified as both hindrances and facilitators to optimal service provision.
• A significant finding was the perceived responsibility of HPs to proactively initiate parenting support.

Conclusions:

• Healthcare professionals (HPs) must take the initiative to provide parenting support to families facing IESC.
• Interdisciplinary, family-centered support integrated throughout the IESC healthcare journey is crucial for optimal outcomes.
• Patient-centered, family-focused care is warranted, requiring management and HPs to address systemic barriers to effective service delivery.