Filial piety is a highly relevant cultural mechanism that mediates the impacts of caregiving experiences on Chinese adult children, worldwide but perhaps especially in rural China. We undertook qualitative research with 24 migrant workers who were caring for an elderly parent diagnosed with terminal cancer. Research aims included building a comprehensive explanatory theoretical model for filial piety’s mediating role in caregivers’ lived experiences. We undertook a culturally sensitive Foucauldian discourse analysis of data, which showed that filial piety can not only function as a positive resource but also (mainly) translate to a requirement for secrecy, including about an ill parent’s prognosis and the need for support for caregivers. The findings challenge the extent of this secrecy and the burdens it places on caregivers. Policy makers should take account of the importance of filial piety and its mediating role both as a resource and hindrance to providing support to caregivers.

Social workers contributed significantly to the promotion of public and community health during the initial outbreak of COVID-19 in China. Based on a quasi-scoping review of articles on social work practice during that outbreak, this reflective article elucidates how social workers contributed in three chronological stages. In the early stage (late January and February 2020), social workers provided community services offered as part of the governmental structure (moderate information and resource provision); in the middle stage (March 2020), social workers provided services to vulnerable groups alongside supporting the quarantine strategy; and in the late stage (April 2020 onwards), their services were focused on recuperation and recovery after the national lockdown was lifted. In the meanwhile, several issues for public and community health social work as a profession in terms of how it was able to support anti-COVID-19 practices became clear, including a lack of independence and stability, the need for better flexibility and greater ability to act pragmatically and lack of professional agreement. This article aims to enlighten the development of a (re)emerging field—public health and community health social work in China in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Qualitative meta-synthesis is a coherent approach to answering an overarching research question by synthesising past qualitative studies so as to create new meanings from their results. We conducted a qualitative meta-synthesis to systematically evaluate and integrate the caregiving experiences of adult children providing care for an elderly parent with cancer. The search was conducted in the databases Web of Science, PubMed, Embase, MEDLINE, Cochrane Library, Grew Literature in the Health Sciences, CNKI, WanFang Data, VIP, SINOMED and China Academic Journals as well as Chinese grey literature databases (China Academic Conference Literature Database/, National Science and Technology Library) from inception to June 9, 2021. Thirteen studies were included in the final synthesis. The caregiver experiences they describe are synthesised into three primary themes: care needs, care burden and care gains, with numerous secondary themes. Besides our findings that seem to align with those from studies focused on other cultures, we have highlighted three main discoveries from the synthesis that stand out in the Chinese context: (1) many sub-themes related to specific caregiving skills; (2) a strong expectation for health professionals to improve their communication skills with family caregivers; (3) the negative and positive influences of filial piety in caregiving experiences. Our findings can help multidisciplinary healthcare teams in China support adult children as caregivers in their emphasis on improving caregiver education and training, ways of making the most of potential care gains, and ways of easing care burdens.

This article reports on research that explored rural migrant workers’ experiences of returning to their hometown to provide care for elderly parents diagnosed with cancer. The authors used a culturally integrated approach to Foucauldian discourse analysis to consider how 24 participants narrated their experiences of care in China. The discourse of care demonstrated a strong commitment to filial piety despite their unique care challenges, and this commitment was bolstered by discourses that emphasized how much parents had sacrificed, as well as by a persistent forgetting of experiences or background details that suggested any lack of parental sacrifice in recent Chinese history. Policy implications related to enhancing filial care are discussed.