Parent-Child Communication About Cancer

描述(由申请人提供)：这是一个竞争性的更新申请，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、社交和身体健康结果的病程和预测因素。我们跟踪了258名儿童(进入研究时年龄在5岁到17岁之间)的样本，他们在确诊后的第一年内被诊断为癌症，保留率非常高。到本次资助期结束时，我们将收集包括观察、访谈和问卷在内的3波数据，我们现在建议再收集2波数据，包括在诊断后5年内对亲子互动的直接观察。 孩子和他们的父母完成了关于癌症相关压力来源、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，并参与了录像观察。我们建议将这项工作扩展到检查从治疗到存活的过渡。我们的目标是：1)检查关于癌症的亲子沟通的连续性和变化；2)确定癌症儿童及其父母未来心理和身体健康结果的早期预测因素；3)检查父母和儿童应对、心理和身体健康之间的相互关系。为了达到这些目标，我们建议再收集两波相隔12个月的访谈、观察性和多主体问卷数据。该项目旨在确定可用于建立以理论为导向的儿童癌症应对和适应模式的风险和保护性因素和进程，并为未来癌症儿童及其父母的早期预防性心理社会干预确定目标。

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.