Communication Patterns and Influencing Factors Between Chronically Ill Adolescents and Their Parents: A Scoping Review

Aims: Parent-adolescent communication is vital for the self-management of chronically ill adolescents. However, evidence regarding communication patterns and influencing factors between adolescents with chronic diseases and their parents remains limited. This study aims to synthesise and summarise these patterns and factors.

Design: A scoping review.

Data sources: A comprehensive search was conducted across multiple databases, including CINAHL, PubMed, EMBASE, PsycINFO, China National Knowledge Infrastructure and China Wanfang Database, from inception to August 2024.

Results: Twenty-three articles were included. Three distinct communication patterns between adolescents with chronic illness and their parents were identified: avoidant, intrusive and open. Additionally, three categories of factors influencing these communication patterns were summarised: adolescent-related factors (gender, age, disease condition and psychological status), parent-related factors (gender, education level, employment condition, disease knowledge and psychological status) and social support.

Conclusions: This review underscores that avoidance and intrusion represent two negative communication patterns related to disease within the parent-adolescent dyad relationship, highlighting the need for targeted interventions based on the identified influencing factors to ameliorate these patterns. In addition, some understudied areas were recognised, which warrant further exploration.

Implication for the profession/patient care: Nurses are encouraged to enhance parents' disease education to improve their communication self-efficacy and reduce the occurrence of avoidant parent-adolescent communication. In addition, facilitating parental empowerment in disease management for their adolescent children is essential, as it contributes to avoiding intrusive communication behaviours. The psychological status of both adolescents and their parents has also been found to be crucial to parent-adolescent communication, which in turn exerts a profound impact on their mental well-being, warranting additional attention from nurses.

Reporting method: Reporting was adhered to the EQUATOR guidelines, Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis extension for Scoping Reviews.

Patient or public contribution: No patient or public contribution.