Cargando…
Animal-Assisted Interventions for Children with Advanced Cancer: Child and Parent Perceptions
Background: The burden of relapsed/refractory childhood cancer takes an immense toll on ill children and their caregivers, jeopardizing quality of life. Animal-assisted interventions (AAIs) have shown promising benefits for children with chronic conditions and their families. Little is known about c...
Autores principales: | , , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers
2021
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8675225/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34927159 http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/pmr.2021.0039 |
_version_ | 1784615837808721920 |
---|---|
author | Cowfer, Brittany A. Akard, Terrah Foster Gilmer, Mary Jo |
author_facet | Cowfer, Brittany A. Akard, Terrah Foster Gilmer, Mary Jo |
author_sort | Cowfer, Brittany A. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Background: The burden of relapsed/refractory childhood cancer takes an immense toll on ill children and their caregivers, jeopardizing quality of life. Animal-assisted interventions (AAIs) have shown promising benefits for children with chronic conditions and their families. Little is known about child and caregiver perspectives on AAI participation for children with advanced cancer. Objective: To explore perspectives of children with advanced cancer and their caregivers on experiences with AAIs. Design: Cross-sectional qualitative design. Setting/Subjects: Participants were children (n = 9) aged 5 to 17 years with relapsed or refractory cancer and their parents (n = 12) from one academic children's hospital in the southeastern United States. Participants completed approximately weekly 15-minute AAI sessions with a trained dog and handler during oncology clinic visits or hospitalizations for up to 12 weeks. Measures: Semistructured interviews were carried out after completion of each family's final AAI session to assess child and parent perceptions of AAIs. Qualitative content analysis identified themes. Results: Five themes emerged: (1) positive aspects, (2) negative aspects, (3) preferred changes, (4) pet ownership, and (5) value of the study. Twenty (95%) participants shared positive aspects of AAIs. The only negative aspect reported was too little time with the dog. Conclusion: Children with advanced cancer and their parents perceive AAIs as desirable with few requested changes. Further studies are needed to fully evaluate impact of AAIs. ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03765099. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8675225 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-86752252021-12-17 Animal-Assisted Interventions for Children with Advanced Cancer: Child and Parent Perceptions Cowfer, Brittany A. Akard, Terrah Foster Gilmer, Mary Jo Palliat Med Rep Original Article Background: The burden of relapsed/refractory childhood cancer takes an immense toll on ill children and their caregivers, jeopardizing quality of life. Animal-assisted interventions (AAIs) have shown promising benefits for children with chronic conditions and their families. Little is known about child and caregiver perspectives on AAI participation for children with advanced cancer. Objective: To explore perspectives of children with advanced cancer and their caregivers on experiences with AAIs. Design: Cross-sectional qualitative design. Setting/Subjects: Participants were children (n = 9) aged 5 to 17 years with relapsed or refractory cancer and their parents (n = 12) from one academic children's hospital in the southeastern United States. Participants completed approximately weekly 15-minute AAI sessions with a trained dog and handler during oncology clinic visits or hospitalizations for up to 12 weeks. Measures: Semistructured interviews were carried out after completion of each family's final AAI session to assess child and parent perceptions of AAIs. Qualitative content analysis identified themes. Results: Five themes emerged: (1) positive aspects, (2) negative aspects, (3) preferred changes, (4) pet ownership, and (5) value of the study. Twenty (95%) participants shared positive aspects of AAIs. The only negative aspect reported was too little time with the dog. Conclusion: Children with advanced cancer and their parents perceive AAIs as desirable with few requested changes. Further studies are needed to fully evaluate impact of AAIs. ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03765099. Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers 2021-11-17 /pmc/articles/PMC8675225/ /pubmed/34927159 http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/pmr.2021.0039 Text en © Brittany A. Cowfer et al., 2021; Published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This Open Access article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons License [CC-BY] (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Original Article Cowfer, Brittany A. Akard, Terrah Foster Gilmer, Mary Jo Animal-Assisted Interventions for Children with Advanced Cancer: Child and Parent Perceptions |
title | Animal-Assisted Interventions for Children with Advanced Cancer: Child and Parent Perceptions |
title_full | Animal-Assisted Interventions for Children with Advanced Cancer: Child and Parent Perceptions |
title_fullStr | Animal-Assisted Interventions for Children with Advanced Cancer: Child and Parent Perceptions |
title_full_unstemmed | Animal-Assisted Interventions for Children with Advanced Cancer: Child and Parent Perceptions |
title_short | Animal-Assisted Interventions for Children with Advanced Cancer: Child and Parent Perceptions |
title_sort | animal-assisted interventions for children with advanced cancer: child and parent perceptions |
topic | Original Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8675225/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34927159 http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/pmr.2021.0039 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT cowferbrittanya animalassistedinterventionsforchildrenwithadvancedcancerchildandparentperceptions AT akardterrahfoster animalassistedinterventionsforchildrenwithadvancedcancerchildandparentperceptions AT gilmermaryjo animalassistedinterventionsforchildrenwithadvancedcancerchildandparentperceptions |