Factors affecting the delivery of family‐centered care in pediatric oncology

BACKGROUND: The provision of family-centered care (FCC) emphasizes a partnership between parents and health-care providers so that families are involved in every aspect of services for their child. Our study examines factors related to parental perception of the family-centeredness of pediatric oncology services. PROCEDURE: This Canadian multi-institutional cross-sectional study included children with cancer receiving active treatment. One parent from each family provided information about the child, parent/family demographics, diagnosis, and treatment. FCC was measured with the MPOC-20, a valid and reliable tool in the pediatric oncology setting that consists of two subscales: "Family-Centered Service" and "Providing General Information." Logistic multiple regression analyses were used to identify factors that were associated with lower ratings of FCC for each subscale. RESULTS: Completed questionnaires were received back from 411 parents, giving an overall response rate of 80%. Worse perceived prognosis and worse parental psychosocial health were associated with less favorable ratings for both MPOC-20 subscales. In addition, parents who were not married or living common-law scored lower ratings for the Family-Centered Services subscale, whereas scores for the Provision of General Information subscale differed depending on the treatment facility at which the child received care. CONCLUSIONS: Our study identified child/parent factors and health-care delivery factors associated with FCC provided in the pediatric oncology setting. These results could be used as the starting point for future research looking at optimization of the FCC process.