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ABSTRACT Even with the progress that has been made to extend life, childhood cancer is still associated with death, loss and suffering. The family has to adapt to a new situation that entails long hospitalizations, aggressive treatment, many losses and changes in family relationships and routines that can prevent the child and the family from performing tasks inherent in the development process. The purpose of the present study was to map the daily needs of children’s parents with neoplasm, to approach the difficult role of management and to organize the health facilities which accommodate such medical cases. The results of the present study showed that with regard to general health, parents appear to have high levels of physical health as opposed to lower mental health due to the high psychological burden they suffer. Also, there did not appear to be differences between male and female parent-carers, which is in contrast to previous studies where female populations appear to have lower levels of emotional state than men and worse quality of life than men. Finally, our results show that higher parental education is associated with worse QOL. Although this finding may be contradictory, similar results have been reported in both parents of children with cancer.