Paediatric Stem Cell Transplantation: The most Important Needs of Parents

Background: Haematopoietic stem cell transplantation constitutes a therapeutic choice for the treatment of a number of paediatric diseases. Aim: To identify the important needs of parents whose children have been subjected to hematopoietic stem cell transplantation and to correlate those needs with demographic characteristics of the parents and children. Method: The study was conducted in a stem cell transplant unit of a paediatric hospital in Athens, Greece. The sample consisted of 77 parents of children subjected to hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Data collection took place from April 2007 to June 2009 inclusive, using the Greek version of the Critical Care Family Needs Inventory (CCFNI) for the investigation of the degree of significance of the parental needs. Data analysis was conducted using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) v. 13.0 for Windows version. Results: Assurance and information needs were identified by the majority as the important parental needs, in contrast to comfort and proximity needs, which were ranked as least important. “Hope” was shown to be the most significant parental need. Using multivariate analysis ethnicity and the presence of siblings, were found to be the major factors that significantly affect parental needs. Non-Greek parents considered needs associated with the assurance (p=0.01), information (p=0.001), comfort (p=0.001) and proximity (p=0.001) subscales to be less important, compared to Greek parents. It was also observed that an increase in the number of siblings was significantly correlated with a reduction of the importance of the needs of the assurance (p=0.007), information (p=0.04) and comfort subscales (p=0.04). Conclusions: The assurance and information needs subscales were identified as the most important needs of parents whose children were subjected to stem cell transplantation. Greek ethnicity of the parents and the absence of siblings were correlated with a significant increase of the reported parental needs.

Category: Volume 50, N 1
Hits: 850 Hits
Created Date: 15-03-2011
Authors: Konstantinos Zois , Elisabeth Patiraki , Stylianos Grafakos , Konstantinos Tsoumakas