Consent to Care for Teenagers with Cancer: The Decisional Process from a Triadic Perspective
Introduction. Obtaining consent to care in pediatric oncology is recognized as a complex decisional process on account of the multiple stakeholders involved. In Quebec, the process is complicated all the more by the fact that teenagers 14 years and over can, under certain circumstances, consent to care without parental approval. Objective. The aim of this study was to develop a conceptual model of the decisional process involved in obtaining consent to care for adolescents with cancer from the triadic perspective of adolescents, parents and pivot nurses. Method. Data were collected through individual semi-structured interviews and sociodemographic questionnaires. Interviews were transcribed and analyzed with the QDA Miner qualitative analysis software following the grounded theory approach proposed by Corbin and Strauss. Results. Results revealed the decisional triad to be a real phenomenon in pediatric oncology. However, the weight of each stakeholder in the decisional process varied according to conditions preceding the process. Discussion and conclusion. Results show that nurses have a role to play in the decisional process and that it is important to sensitize the stakeholders in order to lower certain barriers and make it easier to include the adolescents in the process.