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Callie Greene

Ms. Crist

English IV

27 February 2019

Essential Question: How does pediatric cancer affect families?

Working Thesis: Each families are affected differently.

Refined Thesis: Families that have children with cancer are affected emotionally, financially, and

with family relations.

Burns, W., et al. “A 2-Year Dyadic Longitudinal Study of Mothers’ and Fathers’ Marital

Adjustment When Caring for a Child with Cancer.” Psycho-Oncology, vol. 26, no. 10,

Oct. 2017, pp. 1660–1666. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1002/pon.4189.

There are many things parents encounter when having a child, but when having a child

with cancer brings upon many challenges. This article talks about the adjustment parents have to

make after finding out their child has cancer. The families have to make many changes to their

daily lives which comes with some big responsibilities and difficult decisions. Not only can these

things affect the child’s psychological well being but it can also affect the people close to them

as well. The researchers observe the family relation when the child is diagnosed with cancer. I

chose this article because it gives me a research study of parents that have children with cancer.
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Yuko Okado, et al. “Effects of Time since Diagnosis on the Association between Parent and

Child Distress in Families with Pediatric Cancer.” Children’s Health Care, vol. 45, no. 3,

July 2016, p. 303. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/02739615.2014.996883.

A study was conducted between the physiological and emotional effects of pediatric

cancer patients and their families. This was done with volunteers of patients and their families to

determine when and how long these physiological effects can last post diagnosis. In many of the

studies there did not show a direct correlation of the time period for these families post

diagnosis. Everyone is affected differently based on the study. The physiological adjustment

would likely occur after diagnosis but the long term adjustment would be different from family

to family. At this time there is very limited amount of research that links parents and child

distress based on the amount of time since the child was diagnosed.

Eiser, C., and P. Upton. “Costs of Caring for a Child with Cancer: A Questionnaire Survey.”

Child: Care, Health & Development, vol. 33, no. 4, July 2007, pp. 455–459. EBSCOhost,

doi:10.1111/j.1365-2214.2006.00710.x.

The cost for children with cancer is more than it seems. Families are having to pay for

traveling to different places for different treatment and examination. Most mothers of the

children have to ask for time off or even quit their jobs to care for their child. Study shows that

34.7% of mothers just give up all paid employment and 63.5% either are full time, part time, self

employed or working from home. 1.1% of fathers are unemployed and 96.7% are either working

full time, part time or self employed. This shows that more mothers are taking time off than

fathers are. These changes in employment impacted a lot on families finances.