New Lancet papers raise need for guidelines on communicating with children about life-threatening conditions

Two new papers, which were the product of a Sheila Kitzinger Programme workshop at Green Templeton in February 2017, have been published in The Lancet, highlighting an urgent need for guidelines to communicate with children about life-threatening conditions.

The papers, led by a University of Oxford team, provide expert advice and evidence to discuss the need for child-focused communication guidelines to help healthcare professionals support families where children or parents have a life-threatening condition.

Senior author Professor Alan Stein, Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist, University of Oxford, said: “This important Lancet series offers principles to guide conversations between health professionals, children and their parents about life-threatening illness. There are huge time pressures on healthcare professionals and concerns about how to get it right for families.

“Having guidelines makes it possible for health care professionals with different experience and training in both high, and low and middle income countries, to initiate these critical conversations to provide effective communication with parents and children.”

The papers highlight evidence showing talking with children about illness can help family relationships and wellbeing, and recognise the need for sensitive communication and language that is tailored to the age and understanding of the individual child.

Other factors raised for needing such communication guidelines include practical reasons when children with life-threatening conditions should know, for example, if they need to take medicine or to cooperate with treatment, to stop children ‘filling in the blanks’ themselves, which could be worse than reality, and the possibility, where a parent has a life-threatening condition, of even young children noticing changes in their behaviour.

The two papers aim to help healthcare professionals in their communications with children and adolescents, and in giving advice to parents.

Read the full papers below:

• Communication with Children and Adolescents about the Diagnosis of their own Life Threatening Condition
• Communication with Children and Adolescents about the Diagnosis of a Life Threatening Condition in their Parent

Professor Stein convened the workshop at Green Templeton, bringing together colleagues with a diverse range of academic and clinical experience, with the aim of developing evidence-based guidelines for communicating with children about life-threatening conditions in either themselves or a parent.

There were formal presentations and small group discussions, alongside a session focused on generating principles for communicating with children. In addition to the two articles submitted to The Lancet, the participants of the workshop forged important international links and shared a commitment to take the work forward in the future.

The Sheila Kitzinger Programme at Green Templeton College honours the life and builds on the work of the social anthropologist Sheila Kitzinger (1929-2015).

Her comparative research blended intense immersion in different communities, participant fieldwork and strong clinical knowledge to advocate evidence-based decisions on medical, legal and social change.

Find out more about the Sheila Kitzinger Programme here.

Picture credit: iStock.com / Saiyood