Outpatient Children with Cancer and their Families: The Need for, and Delivery of, Services — Presentation Detail — Celebration of Scholars

Instructions

Student presentations must have a faculty sponsor.

Abstracts must include a title and a description of the research, scholarship, or creative work. The description should be 150-225 words in length and constructed in a format or style appropriate for the presenter’s discipline.

The following points should be addressed within the selected format or style for the abstract:

A clear statement of the problem or question you pursued, or the scholarly goal or creative theme achieved in your work.
A brief comment about the significance or uniqueness of the work.
A clear description of the methods used to achieve the purpose or goals for the work.
A statement of the conclusions, results, outcomes, or recommendations, or if the work is still in progress, the results you expect to report at the event.

Presenter photographs should be head and shoulder shots comparable to passport photos.

Additional Information

More information is available at carthage.edu/celebration-scholars/. The following are members of the Research, Scholarship, and Creativity Committee who are eager to listen to ideas and answer questions:

Jun Wang
Kim Instenes
John Kirk
Nora Nickels
Andrew Pustina
James Ripley

Outpatient Children with Cancer and their Families: The Need for, and Delivery of, Services

Name: Gabrielle Cypher
Major: Social work and Business Management
Hometown: Mayville
Faculty Sponsor:
Other Sponsors:
Type of research: Course project

Abstract

Cancer therapies and treatments have improved over the past decades increasing the life expectancy of diagnosed children. Consequently, the social, academic, physical, and financial struggles of childhood cancer patients have increased. To remedy these struggles intervention programs have been created and studied, although primarily only in predominantly inpatient childhood cancer patients. This provides question for additional research: What are the unique experiences and needs of predominantly outpatient children with cancer and their families? What intervention programs and services are provided for predominantly outpatient children with cancer and their families?

This research aims to discover what the lived experiences are of children with cancer and their families receiving predominantly outpatient cancer treatment. The research will help to enhance the body of knowledge on the childhood cancer patient experience and will help to enhance the support and services given to this population. This project involves a qualitative research design. A set of interview questions were established for children with cancer and for parents of the children with cancer. The semi structured interviews were conducted with the families and then coded to develop themes that capture the lived experiences of this population. Children and families were invited to participate from the southeastern Wisconsin and northern Illinois area. Due to personal involvement at the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin, Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare, the Ronald McDonald House of Southeastern Wisconsin, and the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Wisconsin, the researcher had access to children and families that have a current diagnosis of cancer.