Introduction:

Childhood cancer has a large impact not only on children but also on their family caregivers.

Objective:

To determine the current state of the evidence on family caregivers of children with cancer through literature reviews conducted between 2010 and 2020.

Materials and methods:

An umbrella-type review was carried out, including literature and systematic reviews as well as meta-analysis, which had as a main topic family caregivers of children with cancer. The Academic Search complete, Scopus, Science Direct, Complementary index, Google Scholar and Scielo databases were searched, finding 21 relevant articles.

Results:

6 prevalent research topics were determined: 1) Psychosocial symptoms: impact of cancer on the family caregiver; 2) Needs of the caregiver in the transition of the role of caregiver; 3) Parental communication in the context of childhood cancer; 4) Coping with the child’s disease; 5) Overload of the family caregiver; 6) Grief of the family caregiver at the moment of the child’s death.

Conclusions:

The evidence mostly describes the needs of caregivers, the psychosocial- and emotional-type impacts derived from the disease, grief, and communication. More research is required on the coping strategies of these caregivers.

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