Illness is a situational crisis which affects entire family members. Children have different experiences and responses when their sibling has a cancer. There are many studies on sibling experiences to childhood cancer which have many problems in the USA.
The main purpose of this study is to describe sibling experiences to childhood cancer accurately and coprehensively by collecting data from sibling to provide the data to develop nursing interventions for the families with childhood cancer.
The data was collected from October 1 to November 6, 1995. A total of ten siblings with childhood cancer were interviewed. The meaningful contents were classified and categorized to four areas.
Theses areas include knowledge and perception related to illness, changes in family life, changes in school life, and siblings' marturation.
The results of this study were as follows : 1. Knowledge and perception related to childhood cancer : Children had limited knowledge about illness and expressed the desire to know more about sibling's illness.
2. Changes in family and school life : Children expressed loneness, emptiness, sadness, depression about separation with the mother and sibling, family mood change, leisure activities and financial difficulties. Many children reported that their school performance had suffered since sibling's illness.
3. Maturation of children : Some positive outcomes related to having a sibling with a cancer are maturation, increased affection for the sibling, empathy for their parents.
The results of this study indicate that it is important to develop comprehensive nursing intervention programs for the families with a childhood cancer.
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