Current trends in Electronic Family Resilience Tools: Implementing a tool for the cancer domain
It is well documented that the diagnosis of cancer affects the wellbeing of the whole family adding overwhelming stresses and uncertainties. As such, family education and enhancement of resilience is an important factor that should be promoted and facilit
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Computational BioMedicine Laboratory (CBML), FORTH-ICS, Heraklion, Crete, Greece Applied Research Division for Cognitive and Psychological Science, European Institute of Oncology, Italy 3 Department of Informatics Engineering, Technological Educational Institute of Crete, Greece
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Abstract— It is well documented that the diagnosis of cancer affects the wellbeing of the whole family adding overwhelming stresses and uncertainties. As such, family education and enhancement of resilience is an important factor that should be promoted and facilitated in a holistic manner for addressing a severe and chronic condition such as cancer. In this paper, we review the notion of resilience in the literature identifying three tools that try to support it. Then we focus in the cancer domain and we describe a tool implemented to this direction. To our knowledge, this is the first time such a tool is used to complete patient profile with family resilience information, eventually leading to patient and family engagement and empowerment.
I. INTRODUCTION
A chronic and life threatening disease, such as cancer, is maybe one of the most significant challenges that a family can face. The impact of cancer diagnosis upon family is tremendous and no one remains untouched. When a family member is facing a serious illness, the whole family’s quality of life deteriorates dramatically. Nevertheless, it is not a rare phenomenon some families manage to exhibit resilience and recover [1]. Research that has been conducted among cancer survivors indicated the adverse impact of both the disease and the therapeutic procedures on patient’s lives. Patient’s families are also affected in psychological and social way, and as such, patients face much more difficulties than overcoming the disease itself. In this “fight” in most of the cases, cancer patients are not alone. In fact, the diagnosis and the consequent procedures of cancer treatment is “a family issue” requiring adaption and functional changing of the whole family [2]. When a family member is struggling with a serious illness, the potential mortality presents a crisis and a challenge to the entire family as an ecosystem [3]. Given the fact that some people may be naturally more resilient than others in dealing difficult situations, comes to the fore the issue how to reinforce individuals and families facing severe conditions to be more resilient and stronger in order to face the stressors that they meet, especially at the situation that a child is chronically ill. As a parent, the fact that a child has cancer is one of the worst © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2018 H. Eskola et al. (eds.), EMBEC & NBC 2017, IFMBE Proceedings 65, DOI: 10.1007/978-981-10-5122-7_8
situations to face. When a child is diagnosed with cancer, it has a profound effect on the entire family [4], which has special issues to overcome. In order to empower children with cancer, it is crucial to start from the family. Family’s adaptive response to adversities is vital and determines the subsequent child’s response and f
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