Abstract
Purpose
Approximately a quarter of cancer patients are parents to young children. One unique challenge faced by this patient group is the difficulty of accessing childcare support during medical appointments. Hospital-based childcare options could represent a solution to this problem, but to this point, no comprehensive scans have described existing on-site childcare centers. The purpose of this study is to identify and characterize on-site childcare services available to patients at selected North American hospitals. This information could inform the development of similar programs for cancer patients.
Methods
Using publicly available information, an environmental scan of the grey literature was conducted to investigate Canadian and American hospitals for the presence of childcare services. A standardized data collection tool was used to extract center characteristics.
Results
Twenty-six childcare centers were identified across 161 hospitals in both Canada and the USA, with 8/55 Canadian hospitals and 18/106 American hospitals having patient-accessible on-site services. The majority of the centers were associated with pediatric hospitals (77%). Only a single childcare center was associated with a cancer hospital. All centers accommodated children between the ages of 3 and 8. Most centers were open for over 30 h per week (77%) and were free of charge to users (89%). Other characteristics, including capacity and staffing, varied widely.
Conclusions
These results represent an inventory of patient-accessible, on-site childcare services currently available at selected North American hospitals. Cancer patients who are also parents may especially benefit from this kind of support.
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Data availability
All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this article and its supplementary material files.
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Shortlist creation and environmental scan were performed by Katherine Preston and Mackenzie McDonald. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Katherine Preston, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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BL has previously received a speaker honorarium from Takeda. MG is a member of advisory boards for AstraZeneca and Bristol Myers.
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Preston, K., MacDonald, M., Giuliani, M. et al. Map** childcare support for patients at a sample of North American hospitals and cancer centers: an environmental scan . Support Care Cancer 30, 593–601 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-021-06460-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-021-06460-x