Social & Mental Health Aspects of Serious Illness

Selected Projects

Project 1: The needs of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Families with a Child Receiving Treatment from the Children’s Cancer Centre, Royal Children’s Hospital

The aim of this project is to explore the psychosocial needs of children and their families from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds who have received treatment for cancer at the Royal Children’s Hospital. Parents of children diagnosed with cancer at least 6 months prior to the commencement of the study and who are currently on treatment or have completed treatment in the last year have been interviewed about their experience of their child’s diagnosis and their experience of the care in hospital.  Three groups of families are being recruited:  i) parents born in Australia and speak English; ii) parents born overseas and do not require an interpreter; and iii) parents born overseas and do require an interpreter.

Project 2: The Impact of Cardiac Surgery on Infant and Family

This is a multi disciplinary research project exploring the impact of cardiac surgery on 100 infants who have had cardiac surgery in the first 3 months of life. Infants are being studied one month after hospital discharge and are followed up one year later. Both mothers and fathers complete a questionnaire that asks about infant and family stress, adjustment and relationships. Mothers and fathers also complete a semi-structured interview about issues such as infant feeding, sleeping and play behaviour, parent’s perception of the illness, surgery and hospital experience on the emotional health of the baby, the impact on the parent-baby relationship, the most stressful aspects of the hospital experience and what was most helpful in dealing with the stresses.

Project 3: Life After Colic: Longer term outcomes of infants admitted to hospital with persistent crying

The physical and mental health of a group of children treated in hospital as infants for persistent crying and inconsolability was assessed at age five to eight years. By early school age, both internalising and externalising mental health problems, although not physical health problems, were more prevalent in these children than in the general community. These problems impacted on the child’s wellbeing and imposed a significant burden on their families. Although the traditional paediatric advice that the infant with ‘colic’ will grow out of it is accurate in the majority of cases, the clinical challenge is to recognise which infants are at risk of a poorer outcome so that effective early interventions can be developed.

Project 4: Brain Tumour Child and Family Impact Study

The aim of this multi-centre study was to understand the experience of children with a brain tumour and their families over time. The study was designed to explore the many dimensions of adaptation and adjustment from a resiliency perspective emphasizing hope, coping, stress and support. An important question was the influence of parent’s gender on their experience and coping. Data was collected at 4 time points (time of diagnosis and then 6,12 and 24 months after diagnosis) to enable exploration of the relationship between the patterns of adjustment to levels of wellness in the child and to the time frame over which the families are coping.

Project 5: Fathers’ experience in the Neonatal Ward