Informing children of their parent's illness: A systematic review of intervention programs with child outcomes in all health care settings globally from inception to 2019

by Charlotte Oja, Tobias Edbom, Anna Nager, Jörgen Månsson, Solvig Ekblad

Children are impacted when parents are ill. This systematic review gives an overview of the current state of research and extracts what children and parents found helpful in the interventions aimed at informing children of their parent’s illness.

This review was registered with PROSPERO and conducted in accordance with PRISMA guidelines. Five health and social science databases were searched from inception to November 2019 to identify original, peer-reviewed articles in English describing effective interventions. The authors selected and reviewed the studies independently, and any inconsistencies were resolved by discussion in face-to-face meetings and emails. A descriptive synthesis of evidence-based concepts from quantitative and qualitative studies was conducted.

A total of 13 892 titles and 144 full-text articles were reviewed with 32 selected for final inclusion, 21 quantitative, 11 qualitative and no mixed-method studies published from 1993 to November 2019. Most of the research was conducted in mental health, including substance abuse (n = 22), but also in cancer care (n = 6) and HIV care (n = 4). Most studies using quantitative method showed a small to moderately positive statistically significant intervention effect on the child’s level of internalized symptoms. Content analysis of the results of studies employing qualitative methodology resulted in four concepts important to both children and parents in interventions (increased knowledge, more open communication, new coping strategies and changed feelings) and three additional concepts important to parents (observed changes in their children’s behavior, the parent’s increased understanding of their own child and the relief of respite).

In the literature there is evidence of mild to moderate positive effects on the child’s level of internalized symptoms as well as concepts important to children and parent’s worth noting when trying to bridge the still existing knowledge gaps. In further efforts the challenges of implementation as well as adaptation to differing clinical and personal situations appear key to address.