Study On The Supportive Care Needs Of Mothers Of Children With Malignant Tumor

Objective: Through the in-depth interviews with mothers of children with malignant tumors,to understand the care needs of mothers in the process of accompanying children’s treatment and provide targeted support services according to the needs of mothers,thereby reducing the mother’s physical and psychological burden and improving the quality of life of children and the families;at the same time,this can also provide a reference for medical workers to understand the needs of the mothers and make appropriate health education.Methods: Mothers of children who had malignant tumor and underwent pediatric surgeries in a tertiary general hospital in Hebei Province from January 2016 to October 2016 were selected as the researching subjects.The purposive sampling method was used to select the mothers who met the condition,and the semi-structured interview method was also used in the in-depth interviews.In the meantime,observational method and notes method were used to collect the care needs of mothers of children with malignant tumor.Each interview time was about 30 to 40 minutes,after the interview,listened to the recording repeatedly,and transferred it into texts in time.The work of data collection and data analysis were proceeded at the same time.And the interview would be terminated when the collection of information on the object was saturated.In this study,16 cases were included.Results: After the child was diagnosed with malignancy,the mother,as the main caregiver of the child,faced with great physical and psychological stress due to the lack of awareness about the disease and uncertainty about the disease development;at the same time,the tough,complex and the long-term treatment of cancer require the mothers understand the knowledge and skills in nursing children.Because of the long-term treatment cycle and easy recurrence of the malignant tumor,the mothers not only suffer from the physical and psychological pressure,but also bear enormous economic pressure.Thus the corresponding demands were generated.The mothers’ supportive care needs can be summarized into three main topics: seeking information support actively,ignoring emotional support purposely and seeking behavioral support passively.1 Seeking informational support actively 1.1 Seeking support from professional medical workers In the early stage of diagnosis,most of the mothers know nothing about children’s malignant tumor.So seeking relevant knowledge about the treatment and recovery of children’s tumors from the medical workers actively,can give them hope to the treatment and enhance the compliance of the treatment.Meanwhile,it has become essential for medical workers to understand the needs of the mothers and provide them targeted guidance.1.2 Seeking treatment information from peers the peer support means the mutual living,social and emotional supports among the people who have similar diseases or physical conditions.These mothers contact each other a lot,and have similar sympathy and empathy.Therefore,it becomes much easier for them to understand and help each other.And it’s an effective communicational way for the mothers,who have similar experiences,to help each other and share treatment information.1.3 seeking support from the internet The tumor treatment was a multi co-operational process.The mothers of children hope to get information from every sides to in favor of the treatment and recovery of the children.The medical workers are very busy and sometimes can’t meet the mothers’ needs.So they must consult from different websites,but some of them feel the credibility is not high.2 Ignoring self emotional needs purposely: the needs of personal physical and psychological health 2.1 The demands for getting encouragement and support after the diagnosis,in order to look after the child,the mother was forced to suspend the work,and became almost disconnected from the society.In addition,the miserable experience of the treatment also makes them desperate.Therefore,they particularly hope to get someone else’s comfort and understanding.2.2 The demands for family supports Family supports was the material,emotional,informational and other help provided by family members.parents are generally reluctant to talk about the disease of children with others,so the mothers wanted to get supports from the husband and other family members.2.3 Ignoring the demands for professional psychological counseling and emotional supports due to the long treatment cycle,serious complications,and life risk at anytime to the children,the mothers underwent anxiety,depression,and even desperation.So psychological counseling from professional psychologists and social workers was needed to adjust the mothers’ mind from negative emotions to positive emotions,from bad mentality to a healthy mentality,to create a good family atmosphere for children,which was conducive to children’s rehabilitation.But the mothers didn’t seek support actively,as a result,their body and mind would be in extreme exhaustion.3 Seeking behavioral support passively: the social supports 3.1 The demands for economic supports After the child was diagnosed with malignant tumor,due to the duration of the disease,the severity of the disease and the uncertainty of the results,the family suffered from great economic pressure.Many families ran out of savings,and even sold the houses,being high debt.However,for the sake of child’s recovery,the mother not only suffered from the physical and psychological pressure,but also bore a huge financial burden.3.2 The demands for social security policy With the reform of the medical security system,China had initially built a multi-level medical security system,and achieved a historic change in the medical security system.But many parents of newly diagnosed parents did not understand the health insurance policy.Also because of the treatment of children’s tumor focused on big cities,such as Beijing,Shanghai,Guangzhou etc.,the reimbursement ratio is relatively low,so hope to improve the proportion of reimbursement in health insurance policy.Conclusions: 1 The consumption of the tumor itself,the destruction of surgery and chemotherapy defeat the body of the children;A variety of unexpected circumstances in the treatment escalate the cost,and unforeseeable treatment courses make the mothers bearing huge physical and psychological pressure and also a huge financial burden.2 After the children are diagnosed with malignant tumors,the mothers change their mind from doubt and fear gradually to accepting the reality,and they suffer a great deal of pain in the treatment of malignant tumors.Incurability,death and other despair words often appear in their sight.In order to let the children accept better treatment,the mothers should seek treatment information actively.On the other hand,we should provide them emotional support,alleviate their psychological stress,and ease their tension state.Use all possible social support system to reduce the burden of care,and then create a favorable family environment for treatment and rehabilitation;meanwhile,encourage the mothers to adopt a positive coping style to fit better with the life and then complete the children’s treatment.