Outcomes
Following a method previously used to assess parental involvement on
intervention results [36, 37], outcomes were categorized by positive
or mixed results. Positive results indicated that changes occurred in
the desired directions and mixed results indicated that there were
positive changes, but only among one subgroup or only for some of the
outcomes measured. For the purpose of this review, a third category
named “no effect” was also added to indicate that there were no
positive changes for any of the outcomes under study.
Seven studies included both health behaviour assessments and patient
outcomes [26, 29, 30, 32-34]; whereas four focused on health
behaviours [22, 24, 28] and three on patient outcomes only [25,
27, 31]. Health behaviour assessments included, but were not limited
to, PA levels, dietary recalls, health behaviour self-efficacy and
consumption of alcohol and drinking for adult survivors. The most
frequent patient outcomes were body mass index (BMI), physical fitness
and quality of life. Most studies reported mixed results, while one
study reported positive findings across all patient outcomes or health
behaviours assessments [30] and two not conclusive results [24,
27].
Nine studies also reported on feasibility outcomes, such as retention
rate, acceptability, and participants’ satisfaction. All of them
reported positive findings, except for one that reported mixed findings
[31], supporting feasibility and acceptability of their respective
interventions or program that were safely and successfully implemented
in the childhood cancer population.
Ten studies conducted the assessments at short-term; either directly at
the end of the intervention [27-29, 32] [31] or between 1 and 4
months post-intervention [23, 24, 28, 29, 33]. The 4 remaining
studies conducted long-term assessments, i.e. 12 months after the
program or interventions [21, 22, 25, 26].