PARENTS with advanced cancer who took part in a phone-based parenting program were still showing stronger skills nine months later.
A randomized controlled trial tested a five-session, manualized parenting program for advanced cancer in 84 child-rearing parents with non-curable disease. Half were assigned to the program, delivered by telephone, and half to an alternative treatment control group that received a booklet on talking with children about cancer plus a call from a trained nurse educator.
Eligible parents had a child aged 5 to 17 and a co-parent or surrogate parent at home. Breast, colorectal, brain and lung cancers were the most common diagnoses. Three-month results, reported earlier, showed improved parenting skills, so this analysis examined outcomes at 6 and 9 months.
Parenting skills in the intervention group remained significantly higher than in controls at every assessment. Effect sizes at 6 months (d = 0.89, p = 0.05) and 9 months (d = 0.92, p = 0.05) exceeded the 3-month effect. The trajectory was uneven, however. Intervention scores rose at 3 months, dipped at 6 months and rose again at 9 months, while control scores rose early and then steadily declined.
Not every outcome favored the program. Control group parents showed greater gains in confidence in helping their family manage the cancer, measured on the Deal and Manage subscale of a self-efficacy scale, with effect sizes of 0.48 at 6 months and 0.32 at 9 months. The authors could not explain this result. No significant differences emerged between groups in parents’ depressed mood or anxiety, or in children’s internalizing and externalizing problems.
Attrition was high. Only 24 of the 84 randomized parents completed all follow-up, a 71% loss from baseline to 9 months, and the dropouts included deaths and illness. The study was also underpowered, so the authors describe the effect sizes as preliminary and consider the estimates statistically biased.
As the first known longitudinal randomized trial of a parenting program for advanced cancer reporting parent and child outcomes, the study supports further testing. The authors call for a larger trial to confirm whether the skill gains hold.
Reference
Griffith K et al. Long-Term Effects of a Parenting Program for Advanced Cancer: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Palliat Support Care. 2026;24:e283.
Featured Image: fizkes on Adobe Stock.
Each article is made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 License.
