The diagnosis and treatment of cancer are sources of considerable psychological stress for patients and their families. Although treatments have become increasingly effective for a wide range of cancers, the initial diagnosis still involves a threat of loss of life for many patients. Even in those cases in which the prognosis for survival is good, there may be the threat of the loss of some significant aspect of personal functioning, damage to physical appearance, or loss of physical functioning (e.g., Heinrich, Schag, & Ganz, 1984). In addition to its importance in its own right, the diagnosis of cancer represents a prototype of acute, extreme stress that confronts many families. A necessary first step in research on stressors such as cancer is to document levels of psychological distress and identify individual differences among family members in order to set the stage for subsequent research on the processes that may contribute to distress.Cancer appears to present at least a short-term threat or crisis to patients, as reflected in increased symptoms of depression and anxiety near the time of diagnosis (e.g., Andersen, Andersen,
This study assessed anxiety/depression and stress response symptoms in adult cancer patients (n = 117), spouses (n = 76), and their children (n = 110, ages 6 to 30 years old) near the patients' diagnoses to identify family members at risk for psychological maladjustment. Patients' and family members' distress was related to appraisals of the seriousness and stressfulness of the cancer but not related to objective characteristics of the disease. Patients and spouses did not differ in anxiety/depression or in stress-response symptoms. Both stress-response and anxiety/depression symptoms differed in children as a function of age, sex of child, and sex of patient. Adolescent girls whose mothers had cancer were the most significantly distressed. Implications for understanding the impact of cancer on the family are highlighted.
There is renewed interest in person-centered approaches to understanding the structure of temperament. However, questions concerning temperament types are not frequently framed in a developmental context, especially during infancy. In addition, the most common person-centered techniques, Cluster Analysis (CA) and Latent Profile Analysis (LPA), have not been compared with respect to derived temperament types. To address these gaps, we set out to identify temperament types for younger and older infants, comparing LPA and CA techniques. Multiple data sets (N = 1,356; 672 girls, 677 boys) with maternal ratings of infant temperament obtained using the Infant Behavior Questionnaire-Revised (Gartstein & Rothbart, 2003) were combined. All infants were between 3 and 12 months of age (mean = 7.85; SD = 3.00). Due to rapid development in the first year of life, LPA and CA were performed separately for younger (n = 731; 3-to-8 months of age) and older (n = 625; 9-to-12 months of age) infants. Results supported 3-profile/cluster solutions as optimal for younger infants, and 5-profile/cluster solutions for the older subsample, indicating considerable differences between early/mid and late infancy. LPA and CA solutions produced relatively comparable types for younger and older infants. Results are discussed in the context of developmental changes unique to the end of the first year of life, which likely account for the present findings.
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