Publications by authors named "Cairns N"

Poor drug compliance in pediatric patients is a frustrating problem for it is common, difficult to document, and difficult to change. This report describes an adolescent who was found to be noncompliant in taking his therapy for acute lymphoblastic leukemia. 17kgs assay showed noncompliance with prednisone therapy three times--the third episode thwarting a reinduction attempt.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

To explore the impact of childhood cancer, school-aged patients and their healthy siblings from 71 families were given one or more of the following psychologic tests: the Piers-Harris Children's Self-Concept Scale, the Bene-Anthony Family Relations Test, and the Thematic Apperception Test. The siblings showed even more distress than the patients in the areas of perceived social isolation, perception of their parents as overindulgent and overprotective of the sick child, fear of confronting family members with negative feelings, and concern with failure (older siblings only). In other areas, such as anxiety and vulnerability to illness and injury, the patients' and siblings' experience appeared very similar.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The financial burden of cancer treatment is a major source of anxiety for the families of pediatric cancer patients. Parents of these patients report that nonmedical, out-of-pocket expenditures are the most troublesome because, unlike medical bills, nonmedical costs must be paid immediately and are rarely reimbursed. Data on nonmedical expenditures (transportation, food, lodging, clothing, family care, and miscellaneous) were collected from 70 patients' families for one-week periods at three-month intervals.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Thirteen cases of childhood malignancy are described in which treatment was refused. Four groups are presented: 1) the parents refused treatment for a child with a good prognosis, 2) parents refused treatment for a child with a poor prognosis, 2) the patients refused treatment, and 4) child abuse or neglect occurred in conjunction with refusal of treatment. Parents refused treatment on the basis of religious grounds, seeking unproven methods of treatment, a conviction that treatment was worthless, or a feeling that treatment of the child interfered with the parents' life-style.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Parents of 191 children who were treated for cancer over a seven-year period completed and returned a questionnaire concerning marital status. Contrary to the prediction of a high divorce rate among these families, the study found a person-year divorce rate of 1.19%.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF