The purpose of this study is to clarify the relationships of the mothers to their children and their meanings. The subjects of this study are 20 mothers whose children are the survivors of childhood cancer and have reached in the latter stage of adolescence, through a qualitative, descriptive research. The study conducted on these mothers shows that each of them has three types of wishes: the wish for her child's lasting health, the wish for her child's social, mental and financial independence, and the wish for her child's higher quality of life. The relative importance of the three types within the mother often sways back and forth, also to and fro, according to how much she is concerned about the child's disease, how she interprets her child's sick-experience and its effect on his/her future. The mother is involved in protecting her child while having the three wishes. The involvement of the mother suggests that she continues to watch over her child all through the child's life. The study also shows that the mother is likely to feel that she identifies her experience with that of her child while she is fighting against the child's disease.

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The objective of this research is to explore; (1) how children with blood diseases achieve self-management with regard to self-care behavior, and (2) how an explanation of their diseases and parental support influence the children's self-management. The data were obtained from questionnaires and semi-structured interviews with 4 children aged between 10 and 14 in two hospitals and with their parents. The results show that the children showed self-management based on their understanding though they had some negative feelings. On the one hand they showed enough self-management to take medicines themselves, but on the other hand they did not show enough self-management to gargle. Body conditions, blood data, personal experience and understanding" of their needs had some influence on their self-management. All the children were given an explanation of their diseases with their hopes when they were hospitalized, which had some good influence on their self-management, but three children did not remember what they had been told. In addition, parental support that respected their state of mind and behavior promoted self-management.

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[in Japanese]

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The purpose of this study was to clarify the characteristic of self-efficacy (SE) and the relationship among SE and health behaviors of adolescent oncology patients. Questionnaires were used to explain the contents to 36 pediatric oncology patients of 10-15 years in outpatient units. The average age was 12.42 + 1.53 years, the ratio of hematapostema patients was 77.8%. The mean of SE was 40.47±4.37. There were no significant correlations among SE total score with health behaviors. In the SE items, there were significant correlations among SE item scores with infection prevention behaviors and good health customs. Therefore, it is suggested that SE encourages health behaviors. This suggests the concept that nursing support encourages SE improvement, and family cooperation, to maintain good health behaviors.

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The aims of this research were to clarify the experiences of children with chronic diseases and their families during the transition period from leaving hospital until feeling 'settled' in daily routines of home care, and also to examine ways of providing support during this process. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with 10 people in 8 families introduced by the Home-Visit Nursing Station, and results were categorized according to experience at home and then subsumed into themes. The early period of home care is a period of "protecting the child's life in a state of confusion" where the doctor's advice is used as a point of reference while dealing head-on with the problems emerging in home care, all the time completely wrapped up in protecting the child's life. The stage at which families start to try to create life stability through adjustment is the stage at which "evaluative ability develops together with use of surrounding resources". Once the family is able to organize their life according to their own situation, they reach the stage of "constantly changing life, with decisions made by the family and the child". As far as methods of support are concerned, instruction and guidance are necessary at the immediate post-transition stage, support for judgments and information provision are necessary at the adjustment stage, and plentiful information provision centred on social resources, together with support of the family's treatment methods, is necessary in the family-directed stage.

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[in Japanese]

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[in Japanese]

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