Effectiveness of psychological interventions intended to promote adjustment of children with cancer and their parents: an overview

Abstract

This article aims at providing a general overview of psychological interventions intended to promote psychological adjustment of children with cancer and their parents. To achieve this goal, we reviewed published articles between 1998-2010, using a combination of the following key-words: psychosocial intervention, psychotherapy, trial, treatment, adjustment, well-being, adaptation, cancer, childhood cancer, pediatric cancer, anxiety and depression in the electronic databases: Psycinfo, Medline, Scielo, Lilacs, Psicodoc and Psyarticles. Fourteen articles were found and analyses show that most interventions had some efficacy in the psychological adjustment of children and their parents; nevertheless, there is a limited number of treatments that can in fact be considered effective. The convenience of psychological interventions is discussed and how they must comprehend strengths and the promotion of psychological health and should not be based solely on deficits and psychopathological models. Possibly, this re-orientation will help fostering significant clinic changes regarding the stress associated to cancer and its treatment.