Att leva med kniven mot strupen : En litteraturstudie om cancersjuka föräldrar med barn boende hemma och deras copingstrategier och upplevelser sett ur ett genusperspektiv.

Sammanfattning: Background: In Sweden, approximately  60,000 people are diagnosed with some sort of cancer every year. Of those, one-fifth are parents with minors. A cancer diagnosis can create great uncertainty for the diagnosed patient and their families. It is important, for many cancer patients, to receive psychological support and that the healthcare professionals, including counselors, who work with this patients possesses the knowledge required to be able to help them in the best way. Aim: I wish to highlight the various copingstrategies and provide greater insight into how parents, diagnosed with cancer and having young children, manage and experience their situation. I also want, from a gender perspective, to see if there are any similarities or differences in how mothers perceive their situation compared to fathers. Method: Descriptive literature review of 9 scientific articles. Results: Many of the coping strategies that parents used was focused on protecting their children. For instance, the parents would hesitate to talk to their children about the diagnosis because they felt that they lacked knowledge on how to talk to children about such a difficult subject In a good way. That led, in some cases, to the fact that some parents concealed the diagnosis or embellished the truth to their children. It also emerged from the study that procedures was one of the most common copingstrategies and seemed to have a positive effect on both the sick parent and the rest of the family.One of the differences between diagnosed mothers and fathers was that the mothers found it difficult to balance their own well-being while being a good parent.The guilt that it resulted in these mothers could be linked to how we see parenting. We could potentially link the guilt that these diagnosed mothers felt trying to find the balance between their own well-being and performing the good mother role to the general way we view parenting in our society today to the way we view parenting. Conclusion: Continues research must be done on how parents diagnosed with cancer and with minor children experience and manage their situation when there seems to be so little research done in this area. The findings of the literature shows that socialworkers and other healthcare staff must, if they do not already have it, acquire knowledge about how these parents can best talk to their children about cancer. It would also be desirable that the curators had an awareness of how the perception of the different parental roles affects both the individual and its environment during the period of illness. Increased awareness leads to increased understanding and increases the chance for the right help and support.