Abstract. This research assesses Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) in a Spanish sample of adolescent cancer survivors, and analyzes the relationship between HRQoL, coping styles and physical exercise. Forty-two survivors (12-19 years), who were ≥ 1 year of remission, completed standardized measures of HRQoL (CHIP-AE), coping strategies (ACS) and physical exercise (AECEF). Mean scores in all HRQoL domains were within normative values. Multiple regression analysis revealed that physical exercise and productive coping were related to higher HRQoL, whereas nonproductive coping was related to lower HRQoL. This sample of survivors reported good levels of HRQoL, which are mediated by coping styles and physical exercise.

This study assessed the psychosocial outcomes of adolescent cancer survivors and their relationship with personal and socio-familiar factors. Using a cross-sectional design, 41 survivors answered the four psychosocial dimensions of the KIDSCREEN-52 questionnaire and measures for social support and coping. Similarly, 41 parents answered coping and cancer-related distress measures. All psychosocial scores were within normative values (50 ± 10). Multiple linear regression analyses revealed four models with a range of explained variance between 9.4 percent and 31.9 percent that include the informative and emotional support, parental distress, and coping. This study contributes to the understanding of psychosocial outcomes of childhood cancer survivors and its correlates.

This study was twofold: 1) to assess parental reactions to childhood cancer throughout the oncological experience and 2) to explore associations between parents' reactions during treatment and cancer-related distress at survival. A cross-sectional descriptive study collecting data (at survival) from retrospective (perceived social support, optimism, distress, coping in the worst situation) and current variables (general stress, distress regarding cancer, benefit finding) was carried out. Forty-one parents of childhood cancer survivors were assessed. High levels of distress (M = 9.5, SD = 1.32, range 4-10) and self-reported efforts to overcome difficulties occurring during the hospitalization (M = 7.48, SD = 3.01, range 0-10) were found. However, parents received high social support from very different sources. This could explain the satisfactory levels of optimism found (43.9% of the sample, M ≥ 16, range 9 - 24). Most parents reported to use engagement (M = 2.57, SD = 0.41, range 1-4) and help-seeking (M = 2.52, SD = 0.53, range 1-4) coping strategies to overcome difficulties. Some parents recognized to use psychological defenses when coping with the distress of cancer. However, this disengagement style was less preferred (M = 1.62, SD = 0.37, range 1-4). Finally, 22% of parents reported positive consequences and 60% reported positive and negative consequences too. When exploring how treatment experiences can influence cancer-related distress in survivorship, we observed that those who received less social support used more disengagement coping and referred higher efforts to overcome difficulties during treatment, displayed persistent distress at survival. These same parents showed higher scores on general stress. Besides, these results were not influenced by child's sequelae at survival. These findings support the hypothesis that "the end of treatment is not the end". Consequently, special attention should be placed in screening parents experiences throughout different milestones of cancer to design tailored interventions aimed at reducing persistent distress at survival.

Research findings about health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of childhood cancer survivors are mixed and the features which could modulate these results have not been investigated rigorously. This research aims to improve the knowledge on these topics. Thus, HRQoL between central nervous system (CNST) and non-central nervous system (non-CNST) adolescent cancer survivors was compared. The influence of selected factors (gender and years since diagnosis) on HRQoL was also analysed. In a cross-sectional design, 78 survivors (12-20 years) who were ≥ 1 year free of oncological treatment answered the self-reported version of the KIDSCREEN-52. HRQoL mean scores of CNST survivors were lower in comparison with non-CNST in physical well-being and social support and peers dimensions. Furthermore, female gender was also related to lower HRQoL scores for both types of tumours in physical well-being and autonomy dimensions. Additionally, scores on psychological well-being, social support and peers, parent relations and home life and school environment dimensions decrease with length of time from diagnosis. Therefore, diagnosis of CNST and gender were related to lower HRQoL among survivors in some dimensions, whereas time from diagnosis was related to impaired HRQoL in other features. These results can help to design tailored interventions and psychosocial guidelines to follow-up survivors.