Parental Emotional Resilience and Procedural Anxiety of their Children with Cancer

Background: Childhood cancer is a challenging, stressful and unpredictable experience for children and their parents. Since children diagnosis with cancer and throughout treatment journey, they may undergo painful invasive procedures, which heightens their procedural anxiety. Moreover, caring for cancer children may negatively affect parental physical and psychological well-being. Aim: To assess parental emotional resilience and procedural anxiety of their children with cancer in Ismailia governorate. Design: A descriptive research design was used to achieve the aim of the study. Sample: A purposeful sample of one hundred and thirty-eight child suffering from cancer and undergoing treatment procedures aged 8-12 years old and one parent (mother or father) for each child. Tools for data collection: the data was gathered through structured interview where the tools divided into two parts: the first part includes demographic characteristics of the studied subjects, and the second part includes two adopted tools, the Nicholson McBride Resilience Questionnaire and the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory cancer Module. Results: Most of parents of children with cancer in this study have low levels of parental emotional resilience. Moreover, the majority of studied cancer children have high level of procedural anxiety. Conclusion: Parents of children with cancer are at substantial risk for poor emotional resilience, while their cancer children are at greater risk for procedural anxiety. Recommendation: Inclusion of pediatric psycho-oncology nursing in the professional structure of health care in Egypt and maximizing its role as a cornerstone in the success of the multi-faceted management process.