FACTORS PREDICTING MATERNAL CAREGIVING BEHAVIOURS FOR LEUKAEMIC CHILDREN UNDERGOING CHEMOTHERAPY

Abstract

Leukaemic children undergoing chemotherapy require substantial maternal care to enhance their quality of life. This cross-sectional predictive study aimed to describe the level of the maternal caregiving behaviours for leukaemic children undergoing chemotherapy; to examine the relationships between educational background, family income, social support, disease knowledge, attitude towards caregiving, self-efficacy and maternal caregiving behaviours towards such children, and to investigate the predictive ability of such factors for maternal caregiving behaviours. Data were collected from 90 mothers of children with leukaemia, who met the specified criteria, in paediatric haematology clinics of five tertiary hospitals in northern Thailand through sets of questionnaires and analysed by descriptive statistics, Pearson’s correlation, Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient and stepwise multiple regression from September, 2018 to May, 2019. We found that the mean score of maternal caregiving behaviour for children with leukaemia undergoing chemotherapy was at a moderate level (147.41 ± 23.04), the attitude towards caregiving and self-efficacy had a statistically significant positive relationship with the maternal caregiving behaviours (p < 0.001), while educational background, family income, social support and disease knowledge had no relationship with maternal caregiving behaviours. The attitude towards caregiving and self-efficacy could explain 18.8% of the variance in the maternal caregiving behaviours. The findings of this study serve as preliminary information for nurses to plan for promoting maternal caregiving behaviors by managing these predicting factors and to plan for further research to indicate causal factors of maternal caregiving behaviours.