Siblings of children with cancer—the price they pay to function

Parenting in Childhood Life-Threatening Illness: A Mixed-Methods Study

“…[49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57] Quantitative proxy reports revealed that school-aged siblings do not experience more psychological distress than the general population, 58 while qualitative parent-report data reveal parental concerns over sibling well-being in LTI. 10 Data gleaned from siblings themselves, conversely, reveal intrapsychic distress, 59 feeling invisible within the family, 60 perceptions of poor intrafamily communication, [51][52] increased anxiety, 54,55 short and long-term difficulties in psychosocial and physical functioning, 49,61 internalizing and externalizing symptoms and lower self-esteem, 62 lower HRQOL, 63 and improved psychosocial health. 64 Further research on trade-offs and effects on siblings can inform family-focused interventions to support parental decision making, uncover family-level impact, 65,66 and guide efforts to improve relationships and sibling adaptation.…”

It is a marathon rather than a sprint: an initial exploration of unmet needs and support preferences of caregivers of children with SCI

“…This research is additive to understanding family perspectives on unmet needs, as well as involving families in helping to shape research studies and health care programs [50][51][52]. In addition to the need for the development and evaluation of a variety of pediatric caregiver-focused interventions, this research adds to the calls for more service and research attention on families [3,4,14,15] including youth who live with chronically ill siblings [4,53,54].…”

The Forgotten Children

“…Guggemos et al [27] compared 14 siblings of children diagnosed with cancer with matched control group of 18 children age 6-12 and discovered that 2 weeks after the cancer diagnosis, siblings of children with cancer displayed more guilt or shame, avoided displaying interpersonal conflicts, showed problems of dysregulation, and had significantly more elements of disruptions, destruction and themes of dissociation. The well siblings have a tendency to manipulate and control the situation and the interviewer by changing the rules of play, which reflects their confusion and fear of losing control over the course of the story [27]. It is suggested that shortly after diagnosis, siblings showed clear reactions of intrapsychic adjustment that may be prognostic for the later development of mental illness [27].…”

“…The well siblings have a tendency to manipulate and control the situation and the interviewer by changing the rules of play, which reflects their confusion and fear of losing control over the course of the story [27]. It is suggested that shortly after diagnosis, siblings showed clear reactions of intrapsychic adjustment that may be prognostic for the later development of mental illness [27]. All siblings described a sense of shock, fear, uncertainty, and loneliness following the diagnosis of cancer [9].…”

“…In contrast to the transition period, studies have been done on sibling caregivers after treatment completion. In 2015, Guggemos et al [27] reported that siblings of children with cancer at the end of treatment continue to display dysregulative behaviors and continue to remain at risk. Several studies have reported that siblings of young cancer survivors have more negative psychological distress (e.g., fear, worry, anger), more posttraumatic stress, and poorer quality of life compared to controls [34,35].…”