ParentsCan

Logga ParentsCan

Details

  • Funder: Swedish Research Council, The Swedish Cancer Society,Swedish Childhood Cancer Fund

About ParentsCan

ParentsCan is a research programme with the overall aim to increase access to psychological support for parents of children diagnosed with cancer and thereby improve parents’ mental health.

Longitudinal study with parents of children with cancer

Since 2004, we have conducted a large number of studies within the programme, including a longitudinal study involving 214 parents, approximately the same number of fathers and mothers, of children diagnosed with cancer. The parents answered questions about psychological and economic consequences of the child’s disease and need of support at a number of times from the child’s diagnosis to five years after end of treatment or the child’s death. The results showed that a substantial number of fathers and mothers reported depression, posttraumatic stress, and worry as well as a need of psychological support during as well as after the child’s treatment. In a registry-based study we investigated the economic consequences of a child’s cancer disease for fathers and mothers. The results demonstrated larger long-term economic consequences for fathers than mothers.

With a randomised controlled trial (RCT) we investigated the efficacy of internet-administered cognitive behavioral therapy for anxiety, depression, and posttraumatic stress for fathers and mothers during the child’s cancer treatment. The results showed that the intervention was helpful. However, we experienced significant challenges with recruitment and retention of study participants.

EJDeR – an online self-help programme

Since 2014, we have developed and tested an internet-administered self-help programme, EJDeR, with low-intensity cognitive behavioural therapy for fathers and mothers of children treated for cancer. Parents of children treated for cancer have contributed to this work. We have shown that fathers as well as mothers find the programme acceptable, feasible, and relevant. We have also tested different procedures to recruit parents to intervention studies with Studies Within a Trial (SWAT) in collaboration with the York Trials Unit, University of York.

We have planned a RCT with an internal pilot study in which we will investigate the efficacy of EJDeR for anxiety and depression and the costs that psychological challenges related to childhood cancer can lead to for parents as well as the society. We will start the trial in 2025. With a SWAT we will examine the impact of different procedures on retention. Parents of children treated for cancer contribute to this work and with a study embedded within the RCT we will examine whether parents’ contribution has an impact on the trial and if so how.

Project leader: Professor Louise von Essen

Co-investigators: Assistant Senior Lecturer Joanne Woodford, Professor Paul Farrand, Professor David Richards, Senior Lecturer Filipa Sampaio, Postdoctoral Researcher Markus Saarijärvi, PhD Student Ella Thiblin, PhD Student Christina Reuther, Research Coordinator Clara Dahlgren, Research Assistant Louise Asberg Dun

Last modified:

FOLLOW UPPSALA UNIVERSITY ON

facebook
instagram
twitter
youtube
linkedin