Parents of children with cancer often misled

Published 3:00 am Thursday, February 11, 2021

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A new study led by VCU Massey Cancer Center researcher Jeanine Guidry, Ph.D., found that parents of children with cancer were more likely to believe misinformation and unverifiable content associated with COVID-19 than parents of children with no cancer history.

Previous research shows that information about the pandemic is circulating online at high rates and not all of it is accurate. Public health officials have expressed concern about falsehoods creating an increase in nonadherence to safety guidelines among vulnerable communities.

Guidry’s study, published in Emerging Infectious Diseases, was fueled by data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) that shows pediatric cancer mortality has increased during the pandemic due to delayed access to medical care, with COVID-19 misinformation cited as a potential contributing factor.

To determine whether parents of pediatric cancer patients are more susceptible to misinformation than their counterparts, Guidry’s team conducted a survey among 735 parents of children ages 2 to 17 – 315 of them had children currently undergoing cancer treatment and 420 of them had children with no cancer history. The parents evaluated a series of COVID-19 misinformation statements taken from the World Health Organization website.

Results of the survey showed that parents of children with cancer were more likely to endorse COVID-19 misinformation compared with the other parents. Susceptibility to misinformation was more likely for fathers, younger parents and parents with higher perceived stress.

These results suggest that pediatric oncology providers should be aware of the potentially high endorsement of COVID-19 misinformation among parents of their patients and proactively address this issue during visits.

The findings will be used to provide direction for future research on acceptance of other forms of health misinformation among medically vulnerable populations.