Coping among children and adolescents with chronic illness

Abstract

The present study was aimed to investigate age and gender effects on coping with everyday stressors among children and adolescents with chronic illness and healthy controls. Patients (8 Á/13 years of age) with asthma (n0/47), atopic dermatitis (n 0/52), and cancer (n 0/57) were compared to healthy controls (n0/158) matched by age, gender, and grade. Self-report data on coping with academic and interpersonal stressors were collected. The primary results indicated that coping with everyday stressors was improved in children and adolescents with chronic illness compared to healthy controls. Thus, patients reported less passive avoidance on cross-situational coping and tended to show more situation-specific coping with social and school-related stressors than healthy controls. Additionally, among the clinical groups, patients with atopic dermatitis and cancer scored higher on positive selfinstructions than patients with asthma. Conclusively, the results suggest that coping with a chronic illness may lead to more effective coping with everyday stressors. Implications for evaluating coping styles in patients with chronic illness are discussed.

Hospital‐to‐school transition for children with chronic illness: Meeting the new challenges of an evolving health care system

“…Children with chronic illness have been reported as being less aggressive than their peers in the classroom by both teachers and peers, which may be associated with heightened parental monitoring (Gartstein, Noll, & Vannatta, 2000). The coping strategies among children with chronic illness have been identified as being a resilient feature because it has been hypothesized that the children have learned to adjust and manage a chronic, potentially life-threatening illness, and have developed coping tools that enable them to better handle common and illness-related stressors (Hampel, Rudolph, Stachow, Lab-Lentzsch, & Petermann, 2005). Similarly, children who have been hospitalized are more likely to provide altruistic choices on social scenario tasks than their nonhospitalized school peers (Seagle, Jessee, & Nagy, 2002).…”

Development and psychometric evaluation of the Chronic Illness Anticipated Stigma Scale

“…Although chronic illnesses can be quite different in symptoms and outcomes, the stigma experienced will be similar. By stressing commonality in stigma associated with chronic illnesses, this conceptualization builds on past work exploring both stigma (e.g., Beatty & Joffee, 2006; Joachim & Acorn, 2000) and experiences (Chan et al, 2005; Hampel et al, 2005; Katz & McHorney, 2002; Stanton et al, 2007; Thorne & Paterson, 1998) associated with chronic illnesses generally. However, it is important to note that there are important differences in chronic illnesses that may impact the degree to which people are perceived to be poor social exchange partners and therefore the extent to which they experience chronic illness stigma.…”

“…A generic scale measuring anticipated stigma would allow researchers to compare levels and outcomes of anticipated stigma among people living with different chronic illnesses and enable researchers to test the validity and utility of inclusive theories of chronic illness stigma. Further, it would allow researchers to contribute to growing understanding of experiences of people living with chronic illnesses generally (e.g., Beatty and Joffee 2006; Chan et al, 2005; Hampel et al, 2005; Joachim & Acorn, 2000; Katz & McHorney, 2002; Stanton et al, 2007; Thorne & Paterson, 1998). …”

Children’s Actions when Experiencing Domestic Violence

“…Very little research has shed light on this issue. The majority of research on children and coping does not concern DV but issues such as children"s coping with natural disasters (JenayGammon et al, 1993, Huzziff & Ronon, 1999 and physical illness (Munoz, 2004, Hampel et al, 2005. The way these groups of children cope with potentially stressful events cannot necessarily be applied to children who experience domestic violence.…”