Supporting parental caregivers of children living with life-threatening or life-limiting illnesses: A Delphi study

Supporting parental caregivers of children living with life-threatening or life-limiting illnesses: A Delphi study

Smith NR; Bally JMG; Holtslander L; Peacock S; Spurr S; Hodgson-Viden H; Mpofu C; Zimmer M

Journal for specialists in pediatric nursing : JSPN

2018

feasibility study; major clinical study; nurse; social worker; basic needs; caregiver; human experiment; physician; pediatrics; human; article; child; female; male; diagnosis; self care; consensus; theoretical study; Delphi study; family nursing

BACKGROUND: The impact of a child s life-limiting or life-threatening illness is significant on parents who experience a great deal of emotional, physical, and spiritual upheaval. Hope has been identified as an important inner resource for parental caregivers. Specifically, parental hope has been described as having four subproceses including Accepting Reality, Establishing Control, Restructuring Hope, and Purposive Positive Thinking. PURPOSE: The purpose of this Delphi study was to gather expert opinions from parents and formal care providers about the four subproceses essential to parental hope, to increase understanding of parental caregivers current support needs. As Phase one of a three-phase study, the findings provided direction in the development of a theory-based hope intervention. DESIGN AND METHODS: A Delphi study consisting of three rounds of survey questions and controlled feedback to experts was employed. Experts suggested strategies for each subprocess and ranked them in order of highest to lowest according to feasibility and effectiveness.

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