eMaP

Project dates:
Commenced: 2022
Completed: 2023

We know that when a child is diagnosed with cancer, the child and family experience distress because of both the diagnosis and treatment, which can last years.

Sometimes, children and parents don’t get all the support they need to best manage the distress they feel. In this project, we invite children with cancer, and their parents, to regularly and routinely report their levels of distress using the ‘Distress Thermometer’. The Distress Thermometer is a simple and brief tool that is widely used in adult cancer care to identify those who could benefit from additional emotional or psychological support.

We want to develop and evaluate a way for the scores from the Distress Thermometer to be collected electronically and shared with the healthcare team. We want to see if this idea is acceptable to children, parents and clinicians at the hospital, and if this information helps clinicians to know when more emotional or psychological support is needed. Findings from this study will help us to provide better emotional and psychological care.

Evaluation of implementation processes and costs will further refine and integrate eMaP as an effective model of psychological care to improve outcomes for children and families beyond Queensland and beyond cancer.