Parent-Child Communication About Cancer

描述（由申请人提供）：这是一项竞争性续期申请，旨在进行理论驱动的研究，以确定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。我们一直在跟踪258名儿童的样本（研究开始时年龄在5到17岁之间），从他们的癌症诊断到诊断后的第一年，一直保持着很高的保留率。到本资助期结束时，我们将收集三波数据，包括观察、访谈和问卷，我们现在建议在诊断后5年内再收集两波数据，包括对亲子互动的直接观察。

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.