Oncology Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Oncology, including details on cancer, surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy.

Pediatric medical traumatic stress in pediatric oncology: family systems interventions.

Pai AL, Kazak AE

The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, 34th and Civic Center Boulevard, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA. paia@email.chop.edu

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Traumatic stress offers a helpful framework by which the ongoing reactions of children with cancer and their families can be understood. Family systems interventions in pediatric oncology are reviewed, with a focus on reducing pediatric medical traumatic stress (PMTS) across members of the family. RECENT FINDINGS: A recently developed model of PMTS is presented and applied to the pediatric cancer population. Two family interventions to decrease traumatic stress systems are reviewed. Reductions in traumatic stress symptoms were observed at postintervention follow-ups for family members in both studies. SUMMARY: The pediatric medical traumatic stress model provides a useful heuristic for understanding the psychological consequences of pediatric cancer on the child and their family over the course of treatment and beyond. Two family systems interventions show promise in improving outcomes for childhood cancer survivors and their parents. Although interventions are promising, future development of these interventions to modify them for dissemination is needed.

Published 13 September 2006 in Curr Opin Pediatr, 18(5): 558-62.
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