Outcomes
Following a method previously used to assess parental involvement on intervention results [36, 37], outcomes were categorized by positive or mixed results. Positive results indicated that changes occurred in the desired directions and mixed results indicated that there were positive changes, but only among one subgroup or only for some of the outcomes measured. For the purpose of this review, a third category named “no effect” was also added to indicate that there were no positive changes for any of the outcomes under study.
Seven studies included both health behaviour assessments and patient outcomes [26, 29, 30, 32-34]; whereas four focused on health behaviours [22, 24, 28] and three on patient outcomes only [25, 27, 31]. Health behaviour assessments included, but were not limited to, PA levels, dietary recalls, health behaviour self-efficacy and consumption of alcohol and drinking for adult survivors. The most frequent patient outcomes were body mass index (BMI), physical fitness and quality of life. Most studies reported mixed results, while one study reported positive findings across all patient outcomes or health behaviours assessments [30] and two not conclusive results [24, 27].
Nine studies also reported on feasibility outcomes, such as retention rate, acceptability, and participants’ satisfaction. All of them reported positive findings, except for one that reported mixed findings [31], supporting feasibility and acceptability of their respective interventions or program that were safely and successfully implemented in the childhood cancer population.
Ten studies conducted the assessments at short-term; either directly at the end of the intervention [27-29, 32] [31] or between 1 and 4 months post-intervention [23, 24, 28, 29, 33]. The 4 remaining studies conducted long-term assessments, i.e. 12 months after the program or interventions [21, 22, 25, 26].