China trial will test nurse-led support for families facing childhood cancer

A cancer diagnosis in a child can be stressful for the whole family. This planned study focuses on post-traumatic stress symptoms, sometimes called PTSS. These can include distressing thoughts, strong emotional reactions or other stress responses after a frightening experience.

The researchers are testing a nurse-led version of a family-based psychosocial program called the Surviving Cancer Competently Intervention Programme, or SCCIP-N. Psychosocial support refers to care aimed at emotional and social well-being. The idea is to explore whether trained nurses could help deliver family support more widely than programs that depend on mental health specialists.

This report is a study protocol, not a completed trial. It lays out the research plan and does not provide results on stress symptoms, anxiety, depression, sleep, quality of life or any other outcome. It cannot show yet whether SCCIP-N helps families.

The study is planned as a multicentre randomized controlled trial. “Multicentre” means families will be recruited at more than one site, in Hunan and Xinjiang in China. “Randomized” means families will be assigned by chance, in equal numbers, to receive either SCCIP-N or an active control group. The random assignment will be organized separately by study site.

Researchers plan to enroll 110 families of children with cancer. The supplied protocol does not give the children’s ages, cancer types or stages. It also does not describe the eligibility rules, the number or content of SCCIP-N sessions, or what the active control group will receive. Those details matter when judging how a program was tested and whether it could fit other settings.

The main outcome will be post-traumatic stress symptoms in children and caregivers. Researchers also plan to assess post-traumatic growth, which describes possible positive changes people may report after adversity. Other planned measures include trauma-related thoughts, anxiety, depression, family management, family hardiness, quality of life and sleep quality.

Primary caregivers will also use wearable devices for continuous physiological monitoring. The planned measures include total sleep time, a sleep score, heart rate and resting heart rate. Wearable readings can add information beyond questionnaires, but this protocol does not yet report any readings or explain whether they will change with the program.

Families are scheduled to be assessed before the intervention, then one week, four weeks and eight weeks after it. The planned eight-week period can show short-term changes, but it will not answer whether any effects last longer. The researchers say they will analyze participants in the groups to which they were originally assigned, a standard approach intended to preserve the value of random assignment.

The team also plans a process evaluation using a framework that examines reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation and maintenance. In everyday terms, this looks beyond outcomes to questions such as whether a program reaches families, can be put into practice and may be sustained. No findings from that evaluation are available yet.

Recruitment began on December 20, 2025, and the trial is expected to finish by December 20, 2026. The study has ethics approval, and participants will provide written informed consent. Results are planned for scientific journals and conferences. Until those results are available, SCCIP-N should be viewed as a promising approach being tested, rather than a proven way to reduce trauma-related stress.