Cuidadores familiares face as modificações comportamentais associadas a medicamentos e adesão ao tratemento da leucemia infantojuvenil

Abstract

Acute Leukemias are the main cause of approximately 30% of malignant diseases in children and teenagers, and Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia could be identified in 80% of all cases, in the same age range. The treatment is complex, and it is responsible for a lot of adverse effects due to polychemotherapy, influencing behavior changes too. Thus, the familiar caregivers are so important to help the patient in the treatment adherence, avoiding disease recurrence or complications. This form, the global aim of this paper is to recognize the experiences of familiar caregivers in face of behavior changes associated with medicines used by children and teenagers during the treatment and identify the correlation with the treatment adherence. Moreover, it will be evaluated the strategies used by familiar caregivers related to the patient’s necessities. By the results obtained, it will be developed a health education material, to be a tool for caregivers to understand the behavior changes due to the treatment and define personal strategies to increase the treatment adherence and medicine use. The research presented in this paper is qualitative, classified as descriptive and exploratory, where it was interviewed familiar caregivers between July 2020 and December 2020, responsible by patients interned on the Centro de Tratamento da Criança com Câncer. It was selected seven participants, six women and one man, with ages between 26 and 45 years old, from different cities of Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil. In front of the interview answers, two categories were recognized: Child/Teen behavior changes associated with medicines in the familiar caregivers’ perspective and strategies to help in Leukemia treatment adherence. The caregivers observed behavior changes related to corticosteroids and described strategies for treatment adherence. Some reported strategies are related to water use during the medicine time and the use of children's toys as a symbolic example for medicine use. Based on the caregiver’s answers, it was developed health education material. Although the importance of this paper subject, it is not common to find research works about treatment adherence and chemotherapy adverse events. This form, the present work contributes significantly to an increase of treatment effectivity and the patient and caregiver’s life quality.