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The National Cancer Institute estimates that 24% of adults with cancer are parenting children younger than 18 years. When a parent is diagnosed with cancer, this is a major stressor and often creates multiple problems for families. The aim of this article was to conduct a comprehensive review of the literature on the experience of parents with cancer who are caring for young children. A comprehensive review of the literature was undertaken using systematic review principles. The search strategy included five electronic bibliographic databases, using the search terms: parent, cancer, parents and cancer and communication. Thirteen studies were found that focused on parents' experience of cancer. Eleven of the 13 studies used solely qualitative methodology, and 2 studies used mixed methods. Of the studies identified, the majority focused on the experience of mothers, and mainly those with a diagnosis of breast cancer. Analysis of the 13 studies on parents' experience following a diagnosis of cancer revealed 3 predominant themes: (a) being a good parent, (b) telling the children, and (c) maintaining routine at home. The 3 themes highlight how parents with cancer struggle to know how best to talk to their children about cancer and the perceived lack of guidance and support from professionals, the feelings of guilt about not being "a good parent," and the effort required to maintain routine at home as a way of protecting their children. Support for parents with cancer on relevant parenting issues should be acknowledged as an important facet of care for oncology nurses, as a mechanism of reducing parental stress and psychological distress for the whole family.

Developing person-centred care is not a one-time event; rather it requires a sustained commitment from organisations to the ongoing facilitation of developments, a commitment both in clinical teams and across organizations. Contextual factors pose the greatest challenge to person-centredness and the development of cultures that can sustain person-centred care. We will begin with a general comment on ‘context’ and its meaning before exploring three particular factors that influence the practice context, namely, workplace culture, learning culture, and the physical environment. Next we explore a particular approach to developing person-centred care through emancipatory practice development. We highlight the importance of facilitation through emancipatory practice development programmes and describe how person-centred care can be developed through the presentation of a case study that illustrates the principles and processes of emancipatory practice development as well as the outcomes achieved. We conclude with an application to clinical practice. A key consideration for all organisations in the development of person-centred care is to move from what we suggest are ‘person-centred moments’ (individual, ad hoc experiences of person-centredness) to ‘person-centred care’ as an underpinning culture of teams and organisations.

Background: Person-centredness is a global movement in healthcare that prioritises the human experience. Person-centred care has a long association with nursing; however, the implementation of person-centredness as a philosophy of practice remains challenging and requires a sustained focus on the development of healthful workplace cultures. Aim: This is a discussion paper that focuses on the theoretical development of person-centred nursing, drawing out the uniqueness of the Person-centred Nursing Framework (PCNF) to the discipline of nursing and its relevance as a middle-range theory for nursing practice. Discussion: The PCNF highlights the complexity of person-centred nursing, and through the articulation of the key constructs, emphasises the contextual, attitudinal and moral dimensions of humanistic caring practices. The development of the framework as a means of operationalising person-centredness in practice has been integral to the establishment of a research programme spanning over two decades. The programme has privileged research that focuses on the implementation of person-centred nursing in a variety of healthcare contexts, illustrating outcomes that focus on enhanced care experience for both patients and nurses. Conclusions: The theoretical development of nursing through the lens of the PCNF highlights the uniqueness of person-centredness to the discipline of nursing.

‘Person-centredness’ is a term that is becoming increasingly familiar within health and social care at a global level; it is being used to describe a standard of care that ensures the patient/client is at the centre of care delivery. In this article we explore the relevance of person-centredness in the context of nursing, taking account of the ongoing critical debate and dialogue regarding developments in this field. Person-centredness is recognised as a multidimensional concept. The complexity of the concept contributes to the challenge of articulating its shared meaning and describing how it can be applied in practice. The aim of this paper is to explore some of the issues pertaining to language and conceptual clarity, with a view to making connections and increasing our shared understanding of person-centred care in a way that can impact nursing practice. We begin by describing the development of the concept of person-centredness, after which we discuss the synergies with patient-centredness and other related terms, and consider how nurses can operationalise person-centredness in their practice.