Children with medical complexity (CMC) live full meaningful lives that are often short. CMC and their families experience substantial distress, poor mental health, and low emotional well-being. Existing research and our prior studies suggest that legacy, defined as the summation of qualities and experiences that form the child's enduring presence, can be a resource for actionable appraisal of and coping with stressful life experiences. Photo-narratives are a novel intervention that facilitate family sharing of images to tell stories about everyday experiences related to their child's quality-of-life and personhood. In our prior studies, families reported that photo-narratives were a simple, easy way to meaningfully connect and had the potential to be an important part of their child's legacy. What remains poorly understood, however, is how photo-narratives might impact family-centered outcomes. This study aims to and evaluate the feasibility, acceptability, and potential impact of photo-narratives in a pilot randomized controlled trial.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
SUPPORTIVE_CARE
Masking
NONE
Enrollment
40
Photo-narratives are created by patients/families and include a series of captioned photos focused on who is important in their family, information about their quality of life, and their strengths. The narrative is accompanied by clinician prompts to facilitate patient/family-clinician discussion and engagement.
Feasibility
percent enrolled (enrolled parents/total approached) and percent completion (parents completing intervention/total randomized to the intervention)
Time frame: From first enrollment to end of intervention completion at about 2 years
Acceptability
Percentage of intervention parents likely or very likely to recommend the intervention to other parents out of total randomized to the intervention
Time frame: From first enrollment to end of intervention completion at about 2 years
Meaning and purpose
NIH PROMIS Meaning and Purpose Scale
Time frame: 1- and 3-months post-enrollment
Hope
State Hope Scale
Time frame: 1- and 3-months post-enrollment
Therapeutic alliance
Human Connection Scale
Time frame: 1- and 3-months post-enrollment
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