An investigation of the care burden, perceived social support, parental competence and social service needs of the mothers of pediatric oncology patients: A mixed method study

The aim of this study is to examine the caregiving burden, perceived social support and parental competencies of mothers of pediatric oncology patients, to determine the problems faced by their families in the oncology treatment process, the social supports and social work interventions they benefit from, using sequential mixed method. Nonparametric tests were used to analyze data collected from 40 mothers in the quantitative part. Average caregiving burden of mothers with complications in their children; perceived social support average of mothers who are married, leave their jobs due to illness, have a home and a car, receive in-kind and cash aid, have a girl, have a child radiotherapy, whose income is between 1000-2499 TL compared to those 2500 TL and above; the average parental competence of mothers who are married, who do not have a chronic disease in the family, whose child's birth order is the first according to the last one, whose child's disease has recurred and who develop complications was found to be statistically significantly higher. The average parental competence of mothers who are undergraduate, working, smoking, whose husband drinks alcohol, having a child undergoing surgery, whose child is the ages of 6-11 than 15-18 was found to be statistically significantly lower. Caregiving burden of mothers and disciplinary dimension of parental competence; a moderate, negative and significant relationship was found between the family, friend and special person support dimensions of perceived social support and the health dimension of parental competence. As a result of the content analysis of the qualitative data collected from 10 mothers selected from the quantitative sample, families experience physical, psychological, social and economic problems; sources of support are psychological, social, economic and family inherent resources and strengths; They received psychological, social, economic and educational support from a social worker. There is a need for multidisciplinary treatment teams in pediatric oncology services. Keywords: Care burden, medical social work, parental competence, pediatric oncology, social support, social worker