THE
EFFECT OF A STRUCTURED HEALTH TEACHING TO THE LEVEL OF KNOWLEDGE, DISEASE
UNCERTAINTY, AND PSYCHOLOGICAL STRESS OF PARENTS OF LEUKEMIA CHILDREN
Shen, N-P; Gu, J-X; Guan, P; Lu, J-H,
*Hsu, L.
Shanghai Children’s Medical Center,
Shanghai, China
Project HOPE Shanghai, China
Objective: In recent years, the outcome of childhood hematology oncology
diseases has improved greatly.
However, oncology treatment is very lengthy, expensive, and
treatment protocol is also difficult for parents to understand. Therefore, the purpose of this
paper is to describe a preliminary report on the effect of a structured
health teaching to the level of knowledge, disease uncertainty, and
psychological stress of parents of leukemia children.
Methods:
Twenty-Six newly diagnosed acute lymphatic leukemia children were chosen if
they met the selection criteria.
Three valid research questionnaires which measure parents’
knowledge, uncertainty, psychological stress are distributed to parents for
them to answer prior to conducting structure teaching, which then is given
three times per week and each teaching section is about 30 to 40
minutes. The second sets of
questionnaires are distributed to parents at one month later. All data are analyzed by using SPSS
software.
Results: Preliminary
study results of valid 19 questionnaires indicate that parents need the information related to their
child’s disease and want to know how to reduce their stress.
They also concern home care and family burden. In disease uncertainty, they worry about relapse, ability
to recover from bone marrow suppression, possibility of reaching remission, and ability to tolerate chemotherapy toxicity.
The preliminary
result also indicates that the mean score of parent’s
knowledge significantly increases by Wilcoxin test.
Conclusion: This preliminary data indicates that parents’ knowledge increases
when they receive a structured health teaching by using designed leukemia
booklet. Parents’ disease
uncertainty and psychological stress also clearly stated after they
received the teaching. This data indicates that structure teaching is
important for oncology children and their parents for them to cope with the
disease and the treatment.