Chronic Stress, Change in Social Support, and Uncertainty

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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.