All issues > Volume 35(2); 1992

Erratum

J Korean Pediatr Soc. 1992;35:0. Published online February 15, 1992.

Pediatric Cancer Patients' Understanding of Their Disease and the Attitudes of Their Parents Towards the Care of the Child with Cancer

Eun Kyung EK Bom¹, Tai Ju TJ Hwang¹, Hoon H Kook¹

¹Department of Pediatric, College of Medicine, Chonnam National University, Kwangju, Korea

Abstract

Providing pediatric cancer patients with medical information is thought to facilitate realistic coping; however, systematic research into this concept has been lacking. We analyzed the attitudes of nationwide 220 cancer patients, their parents and doctors towards the care of children with cancer, concerning the patients' understanding of their diseases, from whom the patient heard about his(her) disease, whether the patient was told about the cancer, the prognostic views and the change of the patient's behavior by using a set of questionnaire. The facts that only a quarter of patients understood the disease despite that a half replied "I know the diagnosis", and that only 47.7% were informed of the diagnosis directly from doctors, nurses or mother, as well as that 7.3% of their parents replied they knew only the diagnosis ascertained the inadequacy of communication among patients, parents and doctors. Considering that as large as 78 patients did not know even the diagnosis, and that 29% of parents even ignore the self or personality of their children, active intervention of medical staffs seemed to be urgent to modify the attitudes of parents. As for the matter of patient's understanding about the cancer, although only 35% of the parents explained about the disease to their own children, 2/3 of parents agreed the necessity of explanation in general. Most of patients and large number of parents tended to be optimistic in their assessment of prognosis. About 80% of parents reported some change in personality and behavioral patterns of their children. But some restraints seemed to be required to prevent deviation to egocentric trend. To achieve the effective management of childhood cancer, adequate communication and modification of parents' attitude should need immediate attention on Korea.

Keywords :nurses or mother