CONNECTED – a project about being a parent with cancer and its consequences for parenting, family functioning and psychological well-being

Main Supervisor: Anna Wikman
Co-supervisor: Lisa Ljungman, Renita Sörensdotter, Pia Enebrink och Karin Glimskär Stålberg

What is your educational background?
I have a bachelor’s degree in behavioural sciences with a major in social psychology and a master’s degree in sociology with a focus on social aspects of health. I have also studied gender studies and health sciences.

Why did you apply to WOMHER's interdisciplinary graduate school?
I found the project as I was searching for suitable PhDs and thought that the idea of an interdisciplinary subject with a focus on women’s mental health was perfect for me. This project gave me the chance to combine all my research interests and do research with clinical relevance. To be part of a graduate school felt like a good way to connect with other PhD students and researchers and learn from them as well.

Tell us more about your research project?
In Sweden, more than 60 000 individuals are diagnosed with cancer yearly. Being a parent and at the same time coping with cancer is often physically and emotionally exhausting, as parents are forced to balance the demands of managing their illness and their caregiving responsibilities. Parents with cancer experience, for example, a sense of failure to fulfil the role of a parent and they do not know how to communicate with their children about the illness. More knowledge of what impacts parents’ wellbeing is needed to facilitate everyday life for families with parental cancer.

The aim of my project is to study parenting concerns, family functioning and psychological well-being following cancer in parents of underage children. I am currently working on two different studies: a systematic literature review exploring interventions targeting distressing and parenting related concerns in parents with cancer, and an interview study where I have interviewed parents about their experiences. This fall (2022) we will also start a longitudinal questionnaire study among newly diagnosed cancer patients in Sweden to further explore the topic of parenthood and cancer over time. The knowledge generated through the studies will be used to draft an emotional support intervention in line with the needs of the parents and their families. We also collaborate with a group of parents with cancer in my project as our research partners and they give us valuable input and feedback along the way.

What do you hope the impact of this project to be?
I hope that the knowledge from my project will make the cancer journey easier for parents with cancer and their families. The ultimate goal would be to be able to evaluate the intervention we develop successfully and implement it into regular cancer care.

Other information, references and links
English: Read more about our project and its progress on our website, or email us!
www.connectedprojektet.com
https://www.facebook.com/connectedprojektet