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Long‐term coping in childhood cancer survivors: influence of illness, treatment and demographic background factors
Author(s) -
Boman K,
BodegåRrd G
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
acta pædiatrica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.772
H-Index - 115
eISSN - 1651-2227
pISSN - 0803-5253
DOI - 10.1111/j.1651-2227.2000.tb01197.x
Subject(s) - coping (psychology) , medicine , disease , childhood cancer , clinical psychology , path analysis (statistics) , psychiatry , cancer , statistics , mathematics
In 30 survivors of childhood cancer, long‐term psychological coping with experience of disease and treatment was studied in relation to factors associated with illness, treatment and demographic background. Coping was assessed in a prior study, in which three groups of varying levels of coping where delineated (good, 40%; intermediate, 33%; poor, 27%, coping). The present study showed that poor individual coping was related to diagnosis, a shorter time of continuous complete remission, more severe illness and treatment impairments, and lower scores on a test of intellectual abilities. In addition, a longer time of treatment tended to be followed by poorer coping. However, no association was found for gender, parents' occupational level, age at illness onset, neuro‐cranial irradiation, irradiation dose (total) or age at investigation. A tentative path‐analysis was executed, displaying a model for the relationships between medical and demographic background variables, and for their influence on coping. It was concluded that a complex of factors‐associated particularly with severity of disease and treatment‐appears to be related to, and affects, coping with the illness experience. Patients' long‐term coping with their illness trauma is most likely determined by multiple factors. Intellectual capabilities are related to coping.