Chronic Stress, Change in Social Support, and Uncertainty

随着我们对压力和影响压力的社会心理因素的了解越来越多，我们越来越清楚地认识到，这些因素是复杂的，承受压力的持续时间在决定结果方面也很重要。我们对急性实验室压力了解很多，但对现实世界中发生的更持久的压力却知之甚少。大多数人在日常生活中都经历过反复的压力发作，这些经历的影响可能很重要。有些人由于某种特殊情况，如孩子的疾病，而经历更长期的压力。本研究将探讨后一种情况，其中实质性的压力或多或少持续经历。还将研究社会支持和感知到的社会支持的变化如何影响孩子因威胁生命的疾病而产生的压力体验，以及不确定性的作用。为了做到这一点，将对患有严重疾病（肿瘤疾病）儿童的父母样本与健康儿童的父母样本进行比较。在接下来的一年半里，每位家长将每隔两个月接受9次调查。在每次会议期间，将收集一些心理和生理指标，包括有关儿童健康、症状报告、感知压力、社会支持、不确定性、血压、免疫状态和激素活动的信息。每个孩子的病情变化都将被记录下来，并用于帮助跟踪父母反应的变化。这项研究的完成应该提供一个更完整的画面，人们如何应对慢性压力和社会支持如何影响这种反应。此外，还将评估不确定性的心理生理相关因素的可能性，并阐明不确定性在压力和社会支持效应中的作用。

As we learn more about stress and the social psychological factors that affect it, it becomes increasingly clear that these factors are complex and that duration of exposure to stress is also important in determining outcomes. We know a great deal about acute laboratory stress but relatively little about longer lasting stress occurring in the real world. Most people experience repeated episodes of stress during the course of everyday life, and the effects of these experiences may be important. Some people experience more constant long-term, stress as a result of a particular condition such as the illness of a child. This research will explore the latter case, where substantial stress is experienced more or less continuously. The ways in which social support and changes in the perceived social support affect the experience of stress due to one's child's life-threatening illness will also be studied, as will the role of uncertainty. In order to do this, a sample of parents of children who are seriously ill (neoplastic disease) will be compared with a sample of parents whose children are healthy. Over the next year-and-a- half, each parent will be studied nine times at two month intervals. During each session, several psychological and physiological measures will be collected including information about the child's health, symptom reporting, perceived stress, social support, uncertainty, blood pressure, immune status, and hormonal activity. Changes in each child's condition will be noted and used to help track changes in parents' response. Completion of this research should provide a more complete picture of how people respond to chronic stress and how social support affects this response. In addition, the possibility of psychophysiological correlates of uncertainty will be evaluated and the role of uncertainty in stress and social support effects will be clarified.