Reflections from the occupational therapy clinic for pediatric cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy

Abstract

With the increase in cure rates and survival in pediatric cancer patients, there is an increasing concern over the quality of life of these children, especially during such painful, devastating, and destructuring moments as diagnosis and treatment and the subjective, family, and social restructuring of children and their families. This study aimed to investigate the contribution of occupational therapy during chemotherapy in these patients, identifying the most frequent childhood neoplasms and the reactions by children and their mothers during treatment. The research used a qualitative approach, analyzing the results in light of phenomenology, and was conducted at the Albert Sabin Children's Hospital in Fortaleza, Ceará State, Brazil. Inclusion criteria for the six research subjects were children with a cancer diagnosis who were receiving chemotherapy, accompanied by their mothers, treated at the occupational therapy service, 4 to 12 years of age, and no gender preference, and having met all the ethical criteria and standards regulating scientific studies with human beings. At the end of the research, a careful analysis of the mothers' discourse and occupational therapy for the children revealed the positive contribution by the occupational therapist, highlighting the child not only as a passive patient waiting for help, but as an active and reactive being, full of hope, with possibilities for helping rebuild his or her own life story.