Parent-Child Communication About Cancer

描述（由申请人提供）：这是一项竞争性更新申请，旨在进行理论驱动的研究，以确定一组癌症儿童及其父母的心理健康、社会和身体健康结果的过程和预测因素。我们对 258 名儿童（进入研究时年龄为 5 至 17 岁）的样本进行了跟踪，从癌症诊断前后的时间开始，到诊断后的第一年，保留率非常高。到本资助期结束时，我们将收集 3 波数据，包括观察、访谈和问卷调查，现在我们建议再收集 2 波数据，包括诊断后 5 年内亲子互动的直接观察。 儿童及其父母完成了有关癌症相关压力来源、他们如何应对癌症、痛苦和心理健康问题的标准化指标的测量，并参与了视频记录的观察。我们建议扩展这项工作以检查从治疗到生存的过渡。我们的目标是：1）检查亲子关于癌症的沟通的连续性和变化； 2) 确定癌症儿童及其父母日后心理和身体健康结果的早期预测因素； 3) 检查父母和孩子的应对方式、心理和身体健康之间的相互关系。为了实现这些目标，我们建议收集另外 2 轮访谈、观察和多主体问卷数据，间隔 12 个月。该项目旨在确定风险和保护因素及过程，可用于建立应对和适应儿童癌症的理论驱动模型，并确定未来对癌症儿童及其父母进行早期预防性心理社会干预的目标。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This is a competing renewal application to conduct theoretically-driven research to determine the course and predictors of mental health, social, and physical health outcomes in a cohort of children with cancer and their parents. We have been following a sample of 258 children (ages 5 to 17-years at entry into the study) from near the time of their cancer diagnosis over the first year after their diagnosis with a very high retention rate. By the end of this grant period we will have collected 3 waves of data including observations, interviews and questionnaires and we now propose to collect 2 additional waves of data, including direct observations of parent-child interactions, up to 5 years after diagnosis. Child and their parents completed measures about sources of cancer-related stress, how they cope with cancer, standardized indicators of distress and mental health problems, and they participated in video recorded observations. We propose to extend this work to examine the transition off treatment and into survivorship. Our aims are: 1) To examine continuity and change in parent-child communication about cancer; 2) To identify early predictors of later mental and physical health outcomes for children with cancer and their parents; and 3) To examine reciprocal relationships between parent and child coping, mental and physical health. To meet these aims, we propose to collect 2 additional waves of interview, observational and multi-agent questionnaire data spaced 12 months apart. The project is designed to identify risk and protective factors and processes that can be used to establish a theory-driven model of coping and adaptation to childhood cancer and to identify targets for the future early preventive psychosocial interventions with children with cancer and their parents.