Effects of Psychosocial Support Provided For Children with Leukemia

Cancer disease affects children both physically and psychologically. In this hard process the increase in life quality becomes more important even if the life can be lenghtened by means of applied treatments. In this disease term the continuity and the supporting of the children’s development process in accordance with the their age and even the necessity of sharing their fears and anxiety about their life, future and their disease become a priority. Childeren often prefer sharing their fears and anxiety with a medical team or with people they feel close to themselves instead of family members. In this sense, supports provided from the outside in a continuity are gaining importance. In this study, supporting of the devolepment and training of the 0-18 ages children,who are treated and take nursing at an oncology clinic, in an environment enriched with the healty,secure stimulatives and providing families with the personal development support they need are aimed. Study group is constituded from 0-18 ages children who were diagnosed as leukemia and some other kind of cancers at Abant Izzet Baysal University Child Health and Diseases Department of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology. Studyings have been achived with four part time students and four faculty lectures for five days in a week in two activity rooms, prepared in the clinic in the scope of the Project, and in children’s rooms in accordance with the specific objectives of the Project. In the 1900 hours process done with children one-to-one in the scope of the project, psychosocial supporting studies have been achieved in order to increase their adapting level to the hospital, to support their awareness and acceptance regarding their illness and improvement of hospital process,to support their development. In the result of the observations and interviews done, the necessity of maintaining the studies with the support of different disciplines has been proved.