The Complexity of Decision-Making – A Qualitative Study Conducted With Parents Who Became Caregivers
Scientific advances in recent decades have ensured the survival rates for many children with serious and life-threatening illnesses. Treatments do not guarantee their recovery but allow for better management of their symptoms and thus extend their life. However, this progress has had significant implications for families, such as the complexity of care and increased care (Champagne et Mongeau, 2014), and therefore has transformed the daily lives of parents who have become caregivers. These advances in treatments offer previously non-existent choices and can thereby impose difficult decisions surrounding the conceptions of life and death. This article reports various results from qualitative research on the decision-making trajectories of parents of a child with a complex medical condition. We offer several benchmarks to support the decision-making process of parents exposed to difficult and complex decisions.