Understand How Children Cope with the Diagnosis and Treatment of Cancer: An Important Step to Implement Appropriate Psychological Interventions

Abstract

Introduction: Understanding how children cope with the diagnosis and treatment of cancer is a crucial step toward designing appropriate psycho-educational interventions. This paper aimed to explore how Hong Kong Chinese children cope with the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, an area of research that has been underrepresented in existing literature. Methods: A cross-sectional study was employed. Eightyeight Hong Kong Chinese children aged 9 to 16 years, admitted for treatment of cancer in 2 paediatric oncology units, were invited to participate in the study. A one-to-one short interview was conducted. Content analysis was used to analyze the interview data. The differences in coping strategies used between children's sex and age group were assessed by using chi-square test. Results: Findings from this study indicated that the most commonly reported coping strategy used by Hong Kong Chinese children was self-control (emotion-focused). This finding is incongruent with previous studies on Western children in which it was found that seeking social support (problem-focused) was the most commonly reported coping strategy. On the other hand, this study revealed that children used different coping strategies at different developmental stages, with younger children used less problem-focused and more emotionfocused coping strategies than older children. Discussion: The diagnosis and treatment of childhood cancer have been described as extremely stressful and threatening experiences in the life of a child. This study has addressed a gap in the literature by examining how Hong Kong Chinese children coped with and responded to the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. It is anticipated that the information derived from this study would help nurses to shape and design appropriate psycho-educational interventions that can help ease the burden of cancer treatment and provide support for childhood cancer survivors to flight cancer and its subsequent adverse treatment effects at every step of their long and difficult journey.