Communication Interventions for Families with Parental Cancer With Dependents: Findings from a Scoping Review

Since 2019, invasive cancer diagnoses in people younger than 50 years old have increased by 12.8%, which impacts people of childbearing age. Currently, family interventions for parents with cancer primarily focus on the impacted parent communicating the initial cancer diagnosis or at end-of-life messages with their dependents through in-person interventions. Limited web-based interventions have been developed to increase communication across all family members (e.g., parents with cancer with co-parents or children with their parents) about communicating the impact of cancer on the individual's and family's well-being across the cancer trajectory, a key gap to improved outcomes in this population.

This scoping review aimed to comprehensively summarize family communication interventions designed for a parent with cancer who has dependents and to identify and analyze any knowledge gaps regarding family communication interventions in this population.

A comprehensive informationist-assisted search was completed in seven databases. Two reviewers independently performed title/abstract reviews and full-text reviews within the Rayyan software system. Two reviewers performed data extraction.

Thirty-five articles were included, and 24 different interventions were investigated. Most articles were published by European teams (45%). Fourteen articles (40%) evaluated interventions that included the entire family, seven (20%) reported family theories, and three (9%) used a web-based delivery. Most articles focused on the outcomes of the parent with cancer and the outcomes of their dependents (31%). Most interventions aimed to increase parent communication with dependents at end-of-life (43%) or at early diagnosis (32%) in the breast cancer population.

In-person communication interventions have been developed to communicate with dependents about an early or terminal cancer diagnosis. The impact of the intervention on parents with cancer and their children's outcomes were also investigated. No web-based interventions have been published that focus on the entire family, include family-level outcomes, or completed dyadic analysis across the family on the family-level outcomes to determine relationships. Web-based interventions are needed to address communication challenges for all family members affected by a cancer diagnosis, and equitable access to such interventions should be supported.