Stuck between youth and family life – an identification of adolescents’ experiences and needs during their mother’s course of breast cancer

Project title

Stuck between youth and family life – an identification of adolescents’ experiences and needs during their mother’s course of breast cancer

Project manager

Anne Katrine Hartmann Poulsen

Project description

Goal:
The goals of the present project are to:

• Uncover adolescents’ experiences and needs during their mothers’ course of breast cancer;
• Develop an intervention that can support adolescents during their mothers’ course of breast cancer;
• Disseminate the results to breast surgical departments in Denmark with the goal to implement the intervention

Background:
Women treated for breast cancer are the largest group of cancer survivors in Denmark. Research and health care have so far been focused primarily on the well-being of the mother, and to a lesser degree on children and spouses. Studies indicate that it may have equally serious developmental and psychological consequences for a child to be living with a severely somatic ill parent as losing a parent. In studies, adolescents have been emphasized as a particularly vulnerable group of relatives with increased risk of depression, anxiety, suicide attempts, concentration difficulties, developmental disturbances, low self-esteem, poor school outcomes, and generally poorer well-being compared with adolescents living with healthy parents. We need to know what adolescents need during their mother’s course of breast cancer and how they can be best supported.

Methods:
The study will use a qualitative design, based on a systematic review of the literature in the field, interviews and workshops with adolescents at the age of 14-18 years, and testing of an intervention on two of the Danish hospitals.

Focus:
The foci of the project are:

• What are adolescents’ experiences and needs during their mother’s course of breast cancer?
• How can adolescents be supported from the beginning of the mother’s course of breast cancer in the framework of a Danish Hospital?

Perspectives:
An intervention that target adolescents’ distress during their mothers’ course of breast cancer can reduce adolescents’ risk of depression, anxiety and suicide attempts. Currently, there is an international focus on the field, which makes knowledge from the present project relevant internationally and creates a foundation for cooperation and sharing of knowledge across national borders.

The project is carried out under

InCoRE Research Group

Main supervisor

Professor Kirsten K. Roessler, Department of Psychology, SDU

Co-supervisors

Postdoc Christina Maar Andersen, Department of Psychology, SDU;
Professor Peer Michael Christiansen, Department of Surgery P, AU;
Psychologist Pia Birk

Collaborators

Clinical departments at Rigshospitalet, Zealand University Hospital, Aarhus University Hospital, Aalborg University Hospital, and Odense University Hospital

Funding

The Danish Cancer Society

Keywords

Adolescents, breast cancer, intervention, development, qualitative methodology