Background
Methods
Data collection
Data analysis
Results
Participant characteristics
Interview | Gender | Parental problem | No of children | Employment | Live with the other parent of their children |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Female | Addiction problems | 3 | Part-time | No |
2 | Female | Addiction problems (+ mental illness) | 1 | No | Yes |
3 | Male | Somatic disease | 4 | No (sick leave) | Yes |
4 | Male | Mental illness | 3 | No | No |
5 | Female | Mental illness | 3 | No | No |
6 | Female | Mental illness | 2 | No | Yes |
7 | Male | Somatic illness | 1 | No (sick leave) | No (wife dead of cancer) |
8 | Female | Mental illness | 2 | No | Yes |
9 | Female | Mental illness | 2 | Part-time | No |
10 | Female | Mental illness (+somatic illness) | 3 | No | Yes |
11 | Female | Somatic illness | 3 | No | No |
12 | Female | Mental illness | 1 | No | Yes |
The importance of being an ordinary family
Making everyday life normal for the children
For the last six months, a woman from the child protection has been coming home to me twice a week to take urinary tests. In addition, she does an inspection in our home. I wanted it that way. I want these people to come home to me, to let them see that we manage just as well as our neighbours, despite my problem.
Being a competent parent
Now I think we are beginning to cope quite well with the situation, really. We have got our own strategies for many situations that are special for us. For example, if my wife gets very depressed, the deal is that she should see a therapist. In addition, she will have time to recover. The agreement is that she must not let it affect the children (that she is depressed). It is better that she withdraw for a while. It is the same with me; if something occurs or if a symptom shows, we have strategies to handle it. It works very well.
In need of professional support
Counselling and support from a helper close at hand
Support from the GP, a cancer nurse or health visitor is really important. To have helpers genuinely interested in helping you and not just doing a job because it is their duty to do so. You tell more to a person you know and trust than to a person you see only once. These helpers have been there through all the illness. It started with the GP; the GP has been there all the time and it is there you go if new troubles come up.
I am very pleased with my GP, but the only thing he has done concerning my children is to help referring them to the Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Ward. I talk about my children’s situation with a cancer nurse in the community. That is enough for me now.
My GP is very active participating in collaborative meetings. Then she gets more information about my situation – more than if she just sees me at her office. In those meetings, we talk about almost everything. It is of great importance that the GP participates in these meetings. Otherwise, she would have had no insight. I am not that often at the GP’s office.
The children’s specific needs for information and emotional support
Our experience is that the kids have to trust someone very much to be able to talk about the influence of the illness. It is difficult for someone outside the family to get that role. [….] I am trying as best as I can, and if there is something I do not manage to explain, I can ask my GP about it. Then maybe I can give a better answer. My GP use to be very good finding the right pictures for explanation.
[….] because all kids get worried when the mother stays in bed all day, and when they peep into the bedroom she is lying there crying with pain. Of course, my kids got worried. They were terrified. They thought that I would die. They did not see the difference whether I laid there not being able to move because of back pain, or if I had cancer. For them there was no difference. I did not manage to sense their worries. I was staying in bed all day trying to gather strength so that I could do half an hour’s homework with them after school. That was all the energy I had.
Information about support services – a task for the GP
It is important that the GPs have knowledge about where they can recommend us to get help when it comes to the children. Once the doctor knows that we have children, there should be an alarm ringing telling them: ‘Okay, now these kids need to be protected’. The doctor should tell the parents: ‘I have some advices for you, and some helpers you can contact, and here are the phone numbers’, a brochure to hand out or other stuff – I think that can be very helpful.