PTSD Symptoms, Emotion Regulation, and Parenting in Parents of Children with Canc

描述（由申请人提供）：父母的心理和情感困扰可能会在任何时候破坏他们的养育能力，但儿童癌症的诊断和治疗是主要压力源的例子，可以对父母的能力提出特别重大的挑战。在诊断和治疗期间，父母面临着向孩子提供信息和情感支持的挑战，但他们自己的心理和情感困扰程度很高，可能会干扰他们这样做的能力。研究表明，儿童癌症患者的父母比其他类型的痛苦更容易经历创伤后应激症状。这些父母的PTSD症状可能会干扰他们为孩子提供的信息和情感支持，而父母的情绪调节策略可能决定了PTSD症状最终对父母行为的影响。这项拟议的研究将检验父母的创伤后应激症状和情绪调节策略与在与孩子谈论癌症时提供的温暖和结构的数量之间的关系。这项拟议的研究是为了扩大目前关于父母自己的心理和情绪困扰如何影响他们的养育行为的研究的长期目标。此外，本研究旨在确定情绪调节策略，这些策略可能对解释心理困扰与育儿之间的关系很重要，以阐明父母的痛苦为什么会干扰育儿，以及旨在改善育儿的干预措施可以针对父母。这项提议的重点是癌症儿童的父母，因为他们暴露在主要的、突出的压力源中，并且在痛苦程度上存在差异。通过直接观察、半结构化访谈和问卷调查，拟议的项目将评估100名被诊断患有癌症的儿童的父母的创伤后应激症状、情绪调节、元情绪哲学和育儿方式。测试创伤后应激障碍症状、情绪调节、元情绪哲学和养育子女之间的关系模型。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Parents' psychological and emotional distress can disrupt their parenting at any time, but the diagnosis and treatment of pediatric cancer are examples of major stressors that can present particularly significant challenges to the ability to function as a parent. Parents are challenged to provide information and emotional support to their child during their diagnosis and treatment, but high levels of their own psychological and emotional distress may interfere with their ability to do so. Research has shown that parents of pediatric cancer patients are more likely to experience posttraumatic stress symptoms than other kinds of distress. PTSD symptoms in these parents may interfere with the information and emotional support they provide for their child, and parents' emotion regulation strategies may determine the effect that PTSD symptoms ultimately have on parents' behavior. The proposed research will examine how parents' posttraumatic stress symptoms and emotion regulation strategies are related to the amount of warmth and structure provided during a conversation with their child about cancer. This proposed research is in service to a long-term goal of expanding current research on how parents' own psychological and emotional distress affects their parenting behavior. Further, the proposed research aims to identify emotion regulation strategies that may be important in accounting for the relation between psychological distress and parenting in order to illuminate why parents' distress interferes with parenting and what interventions aimed at improving parenting can target in parents. This proposal focuses on parents of children with cancer as a group that is exposed to major, salient stressors and has variability in distress levels. Using direct observations, semi-structured interviews, and questionnaires, the proposed project will assess posttraumatic stress symptoms, emotion regulation, meta-emotion philosophy and parenting in 100 parents of children diagnosed with cancer. A model of the relations among PTSD symptoms, emotion regulation, meta-emotion philosophy and parenting will be tested. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: This project examines how parents' psychological and emotional distress and the ways they deal with that distress may interfere with their parenting behavior when a child is diagnosed with cancer. Specifically, parents' posttraumatic stress symptoms and emotion regulation will be examined in relation to the warmth and structure they provide during a conversation with their child about cancer. Findings from this study will contribute to the development of better ways to help parents engage in effective parenting in the midst of severely stressful circumstances.