Children's Adjustment During the First Year of a Parent's Cancer Diagnosis

Abstract

This study investigated the psychosocial adjustment of 80 school-age children (aged 8 to 16 years) during the first year of a parent's cancer diagnosis. Based on a cognitive model of stress and coping, the aims were to consider within-group variability in children's responses and to identify the strongest factors associated with good or poor adjustment. Mixed methods of data collection (standardized measures and semistructured interviews) were used to facilitate a more sensitive and reliable assessment of the children's experiences. The study was innovative in triangulating the sources of outcome measures and thus obtained self-reported data as well as assessments from parents and teachers. After multivariate analysis, the two main risk factors shown to be independently associated with poor adjustment in children were low self-esteem (p = .002) and poor adjustment in the parent with cancer (p = .01).

Key Words:

• Psychosocial adjustment
• children
• self-worth
• teachers
• patients
• spouses