Comprehensive support for families with parental cancer (Family-SCOUT), evaluation of a complex intervention: study protocol for a non-randomized controlled trial

Background Families with minor children affected by parental cancer are at risk of considerable emotional and organizational stress that can severely burden all family members. So far, there has been a lack of comprehensive support services for affected families. The aim of this project is to implement and evaluate a complex psychosocial intervention for these families by providing advice, information, and care on an emotional, psycho-social, and communicative level during and after the cancer experience and across healthcare sectors. Methods Family-SCOUT is a project supported by the German Innovation Fund ( Discussion The results will allow to test the effectiveness and efficiency of the intervention for the target group. The first experience with the implementation of the intervention in model regions will be available. The evaluation results will serve as the basis to assess the need of including the intervention in the catalog of services of the statutory health insurance funds in Germany. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT04186923. Retrospectively registered on 4 December 2019. Keywords: F-SCOUT, Family intervention, Minor children, Cancer, Parents, Parental cancer, COSIP (Children of Somatically Ill Parents), CIO.sup.ABCD, Study protocol, Intervention study