Parent-Child Interactions with Pediatric Bone Marrow Transplant Patients

Abstract

Interactions between parents and young children undergoing bone marrow transplantation (BMT) were investigated in a prospective, longitudinal study. The parents of six children ages 3 years, 9 months, to 6 years, 9 months, were assessed for patterns of coping and for parental responsiveness using the Family Interaction Q-Sort within a week before the transplant and 3, 6, 12, and 24 months after the transplant. Preliminary results showed that parental responsiveness remained stable across time. When parental responsiveness was compared with the children's symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), lower parental responsiveness was associated with fewer symptoms of PTSD and higher responsiveness was associated with more symptoms. The relation between low FTSD scores and less responsive parenting may be explained by lack of parental support, which contributed to the child's nonadaptive behavior toward BMT, resulting in underreporting of symptoms by the child. The mediators of parental responsiveness were unclear. Less parental education was associated with less responsive parenting. Patterns of parental coping indicated that all parents used a style of multiple patterns to cope with their children's cancer. These styles were similar to adult patients' style of coping with their own cancer.