What ’s it like to be a child and your sibling is diagnosed with cancer?

By Christian Jarrett When the dreadful news arrives that a child has cancer, understandably the focus of parents and health professionals turns to supporting the sick child as best they can. But also caught up in the nightmare are the child’s siblings. Not only will they likely be consumed by shock and fear, but they must adapt to the cancer journey the whole family has to embark on. Official health guidance here in the UK and in the USA states that it’s important to provide support to the siblings of children with cancer. Yet the reality is we know relatively little about their experience. A new study in Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry helps address this research gap, based on interviews with two brothers and four sisters – now aged 12 to 18 – of children and teenagers with cancer. The results reveal the shock and fear the siblings experienced, and the challenges they’ve faced, but also uncover a silver lining in the form of “post traumatic growth”. The researchers, led by Anita D’Urso at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in the UK, interviewed each sibling for between 40 and 80 minutes, including asking them questions about what it was like when they heard their brother or sister had been diagnosed, and whether they’d experienced any positive changes. The interviewees’ siblings with cancer were now aged between 11 and 16 and their diagnoses, for brain tumour or leukaemia, had been made between 18 and 36 months earl...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Cancer Health Positive psychology Qualitative Source Type: blogs