Background/aims: The psychosocial needs of families involving severely ill children are extensive. Despite this there are few family-based psychosocial interventions that have been scientifically evaluated. Even fewer have been evaluated in a long-term perspective. The aim was to describe parents’ experiences of long-term effects of a psychosocial family-based intervention, the Family Talk Intervention (FTI), 4-5 years after their participation in a FTI-pilot study in pediatric oncology.

Methods: This study conducted spring/summer 2023 included interviews with parents from 18 families (16 mothers and 14 fathers) that have participated in FTI 4-5 earlier. FTI consists of 6-11 manual-based meetings led by an educated interventionist. The main goals of FTI are to facilitate family communication about illness-related topics, support parenting, and making the children’s needs visible. Interview data were analyzed with content analysis.

Results: The parents described that they still found FTI an important and helpful intervention they received in a challenging time of their life when little support was available. Most families reported that FTI contributed to long-term effects, e.g. an increased openness within the family when new stressors or crises affected them. Some parents still used skills they learned during the FTI meetings, e.g. to make their children’s thoughts and feelings visible in their ordinary life and in regular family meetings. A number of parents expressed that they lacked support after FTI and suggested psychosocial support following their child’s illness trajectory, with follow up sessions according to the set-up for the original FTI.

Conclusions: Long-term benefits of FTI were noticed by parents who had participated in FTI 4-5 years earlier. For future improvements of FTI, the families required additional FTI-meetings to meet the families’ psychosocial needs over a longer period of time.