How do children and adolescents explain about advanced or terminal cancer from their parents?

Background: Communication between parents and children is a complex process, many factors interact: child’s development, family education style and cultural values. Objective of this study was get closer to the descriptions made by children about their parents advanced or terminal cancer.Methods: Exploratory qualitative study, with a sample of 74 children and adolescents, aged between 5 and 18 years, jointly with their parents having cancer and also with their healthy parents. Information received by children about the illness and his comprehension, where registered trough semi-structured interviews.Results: The amount and type of information explained from both parents to their children was conditioned by the dilemma of explaining or not the diagnosis of cancer. Adolescents received more information than children, without observing differences between sexes. The majority of children and adolescents descrived adaptively the disease from their parents, regardless of their age and sex, being adolescents who used more technical and medical definitions.Conclusions: Oncology teams should integrate the psychological care in a preventive, systematic and strictly specific way for all the parents with advanced or terminal cancer having children.