Research project: Resilience, capacity and coping: An investigation of the practical and emotional work parents undertake as they care for a child with cancer at the end of life
Recent decades have seen a huge improvement in medical care for children with potentially life threatening illnesses. Survival rates of children with cancer, for instance, have improved dramatically but 25 to 30% of children with cancer still die. Self-management and capacity of parents to undertake the work associated with caring in the face of intense psychological distress become paramount in the palliative phase. Until recently there has been little research into experiences of children and parents during the palliative phase of illness.