The SIOP Psychosocial Committee

SIOP Working Committee on Psychosocial Issues

BACKGROUND

In 1991 in Rhodes (Greece), based on directives from the Board of the SIOP that recognized the importance of psychosocial issues in the care and cure of the child with cancer, the Psychosocial Committee was formed with Giuseppe Masera as Chairman, and John J. Spinetta and Momcilo Jankovic as Co-chairmen. G.Masera and M.Jankovic are from the Pediatric Clinic of the University of Milan-Bicocca, Italy (San Gerardo Hospital, Monza), while J.J.Spinetta is a psychologist at San Diego State University (California, USA).

During these past 12 years, the Committee has prepared and published in Medical and Pediatric Oncology (now "Pediatric Blood and Cancer") 11 documents addressing the promotion of psychosocial interventions in pediatric oncology as an integral part of therapeutic trials.

The documents were prepared as follows:

-(a) Preparation of the schema of the topic, established year by year, for a general discussion in the plenary session of the Psychosocial Committee during the Annual Meeting of the SIOP. Length of discussion: 1.5 hours.10-15 countries with 40-50 participants for each topic discussion

-(b) Formation of a writing committee for elaborating and preparing the manuscript as “Guidelines”.
People involved in writing the document: about 10-15

–(c )  The documents already published:

• Critical Commentary (1993)
• School/Education (1995)
• Care of Long-Term Survivors (1996)
• Communication of the Diagnosis (1997)
• Therapeutic Alliance (1998)
• Terminally Ill Children (1999)
• Siblings (1999)
• Burnout (2000)
• Refusal, Non-Compliance (2002)
• Informed Consent (2003)
• Alternative Therapies (in press)

-(d) At the present time this set of documents has been translated from English into: Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek and Japanese.

Our wish is to continue the work of the Psychosocial Committee, looking carefully at the quality of life of children with cancer and their families through a multidisciplinary approach incorporating active psychosocial support.

Giuseppe Masera                   
Momcilo Jankovic
John Spinetta

Click here to view the guidelines published so far.