Document Type

Article

Abstract

Background: Since 2019, invasive cancer diagnoses in people younger than 50-years-old have increased by 12.8%, which impacts people of child-bearing age. Currently, interventions in families of parents with cancer are focused primarily on the parent with cancer communicating with their dependents about the initial cancer diagnosis or at end-of-life through in-person interventions. Limited web-based interventions have been developed to increase communication across all family members (e.g., parents with cancer with coparents; children with their parents) about communicating the impact of cancer on the individual’s and family’s well-being cross the cancer trajectory, a key gap to improved outcomes in this population.

Aims: This review provides a comprehensive summary of published literature on the types of family communication interventions when a parent has cancer with dependents and to identify and analyze the knowledge gaps regarding family communication interventions in this population.

Methods: A comprehensive informationist-assisted search was done with seven databases. Two reviewers independently performed title/abstract and full-text reviews within Rayyan software system. Extraction was performed by two reviewers.

Results: The 35 articles included investigated 24 different interventions. Most articles were published by European teams (45%). Fourteen articles (40%) evaluated interventions that included the entire family, with seven (20%) reported family theories and three (9%) delivered via the web. Most articles focused on the parent’s with cancer and the dependent’s outcomes (31%) and most interventions were aimed to increase communication at end-of-life (43%) or at early diagnosis (32%) with dependents in the breast cancer population.

Linking Evidence to Action: In-person communication interventions have been developed to communicate with dependents about an early or terminal cancer diagnosis and the impact of the intervention on parent’s with cancer and children’s outcomes. No web-based interventions have been published that focus on the entire family, include family-level outcomes, or completed dyadic analysis across the family on the family-level outcomes to determine relationships. Web-based interventions are needed to address communication challenges for all family members affected by a cancer diagnosis, while supporting equitable access to such interventions.

Disciplines

Nursing

Comments

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Caparso C, Bowen Z, Choi SW. Communication Interventions for Families with Parental Cancer with Dependents: Findings from a Scoping Review. (In Press). Worldviews on Evidence-Based Nursing, 2025, which will be published in final form at https://sigmapubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/17416787. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions. This article may not be enhanced, enriched or otherwise transformed into a derivative work, without express permission from Wiley or by statutory rights under applicable legislation. Copyright notices must not be removed, obscured or modified. The article must be linked to Wiley’s version of record on Wiley Online Library and any embedding, framing or otherwise making available the article or pages thereof by third parties from platforms, services and websites other than Wiley Online Library must be prohibited.

Supplemental 1-PRISMA-ScR-8_26_24.docx (107 kB)
Supplemental Material 1: Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) Checklist

Supplemetal 2-Interventions-8_26_24 (1).docx (15 kB)
Supplemental Material 2: Types of Interventions

Supplemental 3-Intervention Outcome Table-WVN (2).docx (83 kB)
Supplemental Material 3: Summary of the included records

WEBN-Table 1-Family structure in intervervention-Final.docx (21 kB)
Table 1: Family communication intervention components analysis

Figure I-PRISMA Flowchart-FAMCOM.docx (61 kB)
Figure I: PRISMA Information Flowchart

Available for download on Friday, January 16, 2026

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