Congress Abstracts 2003

98

“WHAT SHOULD I TELL MY CHILDREN?”: AN ONCOLOGY NURSING PERSPECTIVE. Fran Spiro, RN, BA, BS, OCN^®, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY.

A diagnosis of breast cancer is devastating to a woman at any stage of life, but even more so for the mother of young children. While navigating a maze of treatment options, she must face the terrifying reality that one of her major developmental tasks, nurturing her children to maturity and independence, might be left unfinished. Observation of clinical practice in our comprehensive cancer center suggests that the surgical oncology nurse is ideally positioned to broach the subject of telling the children, following the surgical consultation and determination of a treatment plan. The nurse’s ability to explore why it’s important to inform the children can have a tremendous impact on both the woman and her family. Parents often express their reluctance to share this serious diagnosis with school-age children by stating, “I don’t want them to worry.” The nurse can explain that even young children are aware of anxiety and sadness in the home and that what a child imagines may be far more frightening than the truth. Parents can be helped to understand that maintaining trust and honesty within their nuclear family will have far-reaching benefits for all members. Above and beyond a willingness to put the question on the table, the nurse needs: 1) parent guidelines that are developmentally geared to the childrens ages, 2) the ability to recognize and address certain barriers (language, culture, religious beliefs, and personal history), and 3) institutional resources such as support groups and individual counseling facilitated by qualified staff members.

This presentation will outline the issues women deal with when discussing their illness with their children, identify appropriate interventions/resources, and review potential barriers to this process. By adapting this proactive intervention wherever cancer patients are treated, the oncology nurse can help restore that sense of control of one’s life that is so essential to a state of well-being.