Coping with cancer in remission: stressors and strategies reported by children and adolescents.
Thirty-nine school-age children and adolescents with cancer in remission completed the Children's Stress Inventory (CSI) and a cancer-related stress and coping measure (McCabe & Weisz, 1988) that elicited information about their life stressors and coping strategies. Children identified a range of stressors including general life and cancer-related stress, but general life stressors accounted for the majority of their perceived stress. Children were not consistent across cancer-related and non-cancer-related stressful situations, except for their use of intrapsychic coping strategies. Compared with school-age children, adolescents used more emotion-management and less problem-solving coping strategies when faced with cancer-related stressors, but not when dealing with non-cancer-related stress. When coping with cancer-related stress, females used more emotion-management and less problem-solving strategies than males. Findings have implications for refinement of measures and future research.
Bull
B A
BA
Department of Psychology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio 44106.
Drotar
D
D
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy; D010552:Personality Assessment; D012803:Sick Role; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000150:complications*