A systematic review of effectiveness of patient therapeutic education in children diagnosed with cancer and their family on health outcomes including health-related quality of life measures and health care utilisation.

Abstract

Review question/objective: The overall objective of this systematic review is to determine the best available evidence related to the use of patient therapeutic education (PTE) in which at least one nurse has been involved in the intervention, in childhood cancer. More specifically, the objectives are to determine: the effectiveness of patient therapeutic education on, but not limited to, health outcomes, health-related quality of life measures, health care utilization, symptom management, adverse effects, adherence, biological markers, family functioning in children diagnosed with cancer and their family. Inclusion criteria: Types of participants: This review will consider studies that include children diagnosed with cancer aged 0 to 18 years and their families, parents (or guardian) and siblings. Exclusion criteria: Children and youth in remission; known pre-existing psychiatric disorders in children with cancer and/or their parent. Types of intervention(s)/phenomena of interest: The review will include interventions that include one or more of the following dimension: 1.Cognitive (sensibilisation, information, learning self-care techniques, and related to the disease, treatment, care, and the overall organisational structure of the health care services involved) 2.Perceptive (e.g. symptoms management) 3.Infra-(implicit reasoning e.g. recognition of mild and severe side effects) 4.Meta-(learning abilities and auto-evaluation) and 5.Emotional/affective (e.g. psychological support)(16). Studies meeting Lagger’s (17) quality indicators such as a) brief information on the type, length, frequency, setting, and substance of the educative interventions and b) detailed description, allowing the reproduction of the educative interventions, will be included in this review. Family members, parents (or guardian) of children diagnosed with cancer and their children are the recipient of the PTE (as family-centred care is standard practice in paediatrics. Types of outcomes This review will consider studies that include the following quantitative outcome measures, but not limited to: Children’s outcomes (self-reported or proxy measures depending on the child’s developmental age): domains of health-related quality of life that include • Self-efficacy (instruments as defined by Bandura (20)) • physical function (standardised instrument) • pain (self-reported or assessed using observational pain measures, depending on age) • coping with disease (standardised instrument) • psychosocial adjustment (standardised instrument) • social functioning (standardised instrument) TRUNCATED AT 350 WORDS