Coping with Chronic Illness in Childhood and Adolescence

In the paper

“adequate validity data have been provided for only a subset of measures that are used to study children’s coping with chronic illness.”

In the paper

“Recent findings support a control-based model of coping that includes primary control or active coping (efforts to act on the source of stress or one’s emotions), secondary control or accommodative coping (efforts to adapt to the source of stress), and disengagement or passive coping (efforts to avoid or deny the stressor).”

In the paper

“disengagement coping is associated with poorer adjustment”

In the paper

“findings for primary control coping are mixed”

In the paper

“Evidence suggests the efficacy of secondary control coping in successful adaptation to chronic illness in children and adolescents”

In the paper

“Blount et al. (2008) presented convergent and predictive validity data for six self-report general coping measures and three self-report pain coping measures.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Blount et al. (2008)

In the paper

“Extensive evidence suggests that coping responses are not universally effective or ineffective (e.g., Taylor & Stanton 2008). Rather the degree to which a coping strategy leads to better or worse emotional and behavioral adjustment depends in part on the match between the demands of the stressor and the goals and nature of the coping response.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Taylor & Stanton 2008

In the paper

“Further, children, mothers and fathers all rated daily role functioning as more stressful than cancer uncertainty for children.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Rodriguez et al. 2011, in press

In the paper

“However, little or no data have been reported that directly address this issue.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Blount et al. (2008)

In the paper

“These correlations suggest that coping with these stressors may have important implications for children’s emotional distress.”

In the paper

“Therefore, early temperamental ways of reacting to stress provide a context or backdrop for the emergence of coping strategies during childhood and adolescence.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Compas et al. 2001
• Not checked yetcites Eisenberg et al. 1997

In the paper

“Child and parent reports of all three types of children’s cancer-related stressors were significantly correlated with higher levels of children’s reports of PTSS, with correlations ranging from .56 to .62 for child reports and .28 to .46 for parent reports (Rodriguez et al. 2011, in press).”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Rodriguez et al. 2011, in press

In the paper

“Most relevant to coping with childhood chronic illness, the frameworks of Connor-Smith et al. (2000) and Walker et al. (1997) share several elements in common.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Connor-Smith et al. 2000
• Not checked yetcites Walker et al. 1997

In the paper

“Furthermore, coping responses emerge later in development than some more automatic, temperamentally based ways of reacting to stress.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Compas et al. 2001
• Not checked yetcites Eisenberg et al. 1997

In the paper

“In understanding coping with health and illness related stressors, the controllability or perceived controllability of the stressor may be a crucial dimension in determining the efficacy of particular coping strategies (e.g., Osowiecki & Compas 1998, 1999; Park et al. 2001).”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Osowiecki & Compas 1998, 1999
• Not checked yetcites Park et al. 2001

In the paper

“Therefore, daily role stressors may require the mobilization of the greatest efforts to cope than other sources of stress.”

In the paper

“In their comprehensive review of over 400 subtypes of coping that have appeared in research on coping, Skinner et al. (2003) identified only four frameworks for classifying subtypes of coping that have been empirically tested and validated (Ayers, et al. 1996; Connor-Smith et al. 2000; Tobin et al. 1989; Walker et al. 1997).”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Skinner et al. 2003

In the paper

“These results suggest that near the time of diagnosis children with cancer find impairment in daily roles (e.g., not being able to do the things they used to do) more stressful than uncertainty about their disease.”

In the paper

“The structure of the RSQ has been supported by several confirmatory factor analytic studies with culturally diverse samples coping with a wide range of different types of stress”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Connor-Smith et al. 2000
• Not checked yetcites Compas et al. 2006
• Not checked yetcites Yao et al. 2010

In the paper

“There is considerable convergence in the factor structures of the RSQ and PRI (Connor-Smith et al. 2000; Wadsworth et al. 2004; Walker et al. 1997).”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Connor-Smith et al. 2000
• Not checked yetcites Wadsworth et al. 2004
• Not checked yetcites Walker et al. 1997

In the paper

“To address this gap, a recent study by Rodriguez et al. (2011, in press) asked 106 children with cancer and their parents to report on cancer-related stressors for the child near the time of diagnosis in three domains: daily role functioning, physical effects of cancer treatment, and uncertainty about cancer.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Rodriguez et al. 2011, in press

In the paper

“The model was supported in confirmatory factor analyses with a sample of children and adolescents with recurrent abdominal pain (Walker et al. 1997).”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Walker et al. 1997

In the paper

“However, there is evidence that chronic conditions may exert greater psychological and physical stress than acute illnesses that resolve quickly (Marin et al. 2009).”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Marin et al. 2009

In the paper

“This problem is compounded when data on coping and its correlates are obtained at the same point in time in cross sectional studies.”

In the paper

“Similar to the study by Jaser and White (2011) using the RSQ, they found that greater use of behavioral and mental disengagement was associated with higher values of HbA1c (Graue et al. 2004).”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Graue et al. 2004

In the paper

“Four studies using the RSQ have shown that secondary control coping (e.g., acceptance, cognitive reappraisal, distraction) is associated with lower levels of somatic complaints and symptoms of anxiety and depression (Compas et al. 2006; Dufton et al. 2011; Hocking et al. 2011; Thomsen et al. 2002).”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Compas et al. 2006
• Not checked yetcites Dufton et al. 2011
• Not checked yetcites Hocking et al. 2011

In the paper

“These mixed findings regarding secondary control coping as compared with accommodative coping may be a consequence of the structure of these factors on the RSQ and PRI, as the acceptance scale on the accommodative coping factor also loaded onto the passive coping factor on the PRI (Walker et al. 1997).”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Walker et al. 1997

In the paper

“Moreover, chronic pain is often perceived as unpredictable and uncontrollable (Walker et al. 2007).”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Walker et al. 2007

In the paper

“They found that the use of both primary and secondary control coping strategies was associated with better social and behavioral adjustment in adolescents.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Band & Weisz (1990)

In the paper

“and RAP is highly associated with anxiety (Dufton & Compas 2010).”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Dufton & Compas 2010

In the paper

“Findings regarding accommodative coping as measured by the PRI have been somewhat less consistent.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Walker et al. 1997
• Not checked yetcites Kaczynski et al. 2011
• Not checked yetcites Shirkey et al. 2011

In the paper

“They also found, however, that the use of planning and instrumental support in youth, strategies similar to those found in primary control coping, was associated with poorer quality of life QOL (Graue et al. 2004).”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Graue et al. 2004

In the paper

“These studies provide further support for the use of both primary and secondary control coping strategies to deal with the stress of T1D.”

In the paper

“Children with RAP report experiencing more daily stressors than well children (Walker et al. 2001)”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Walker et al. 2001

In the paper

“Further, the accommodative coping factor on the PRI does not include cognitive reappraisal, a potentially important type of coping with chronic pain.”

In the paper

“Using a different approach, some promising validity data have been presented for the RSQ with children ages 10-years and older.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Connor-Smith et al. (2000)
• Not checked yetcites Dufton et al. (2011)

In the paper

“Further, adolescents’ use of social support, a type of primary control coping, was associated with greater positive well-being (Edgar & Skinner 2003).”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Edgar & Skinner 2003

In the paper

“Most importantly, the use of the same informant or source of information for both the measurement of coping and important correlates (e.g., emotional problems, QOL) is problematic. When the same source is used to assess both constructs it difficult to extract the contribution of shared method variance to the associations that are found.”

In the paper

“It is noteworthy that the role of parents in coping may be especially important for diabetes as compared with other illnesses, particularly for primary control coping strategies, such as problem solving.”

In the paper

“For example, Connor-Smith et al. (2000) reported significant correlations between children’s self-reports and parents’ reports of their children’s coping with chronic pain.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Connor-Smith et al. (2000)

In the paper

“For example, Hocking et al. (2011) found that the use of secondary control coping strategies to deal with abdominal pain was related to fewer symptoms of self-reported anxiety symptoms.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Hocking et al. (2011)

In the paper

“However, these correlations cannot serve as tests of validity of measures of coping and at the same time be used as tests of hypotheses of the relations between coping and adjustment, as this becomes circular (Compas et al. 2001).”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Compas et al. 2001

In the paper

“Further, Connor-Smith et al. (2000) and Dufton et al. (2011) reported significant correlations between self-reports of disengagement coping and heart rate reactivity and recovery in response to laboratory stress tasks.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Connor-Smith et al. (2000)
• Not checked yetcites Dufton et al. (2011)

In the paper

“and they often miss school and extracurricular activities because of the pain (Roth-Isigkitet et al. 2005).”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Roth-Isigkitet et al. 2005

In the paper

“Cross-informant correlations of children’s coping and correlations between children’s reports of coping and objective measures of relevant constructs provide encouraging evidence that children can report accurately on their cognitive and behavioral efforts to cope with illness-related stress.”

In the paper

“The pain itself is experienced as stressful (Compas & Boyer 2001)”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Compas & Boyer 2001

In the paper

“Rather than analyzing coping scales separately, Walker et al. (2008) used cluster analyses to identify profiles of coping on the scales of the PRI. These profiles reflected patterns of the relative use of different types of coping in response to pain episodes.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Walker et al. (2008)

In the paper

“Interestingly, parents who experienced irritable bowel syndrome themselves were more likely to respond to their children’s pain with solicitousness (Levy, 2011).”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Levy, 2011

In the paper

“They found that daily diaries of how children coped with specific pain episodes were stronger predictors of functional disability, somatic symptoms, and depressive symptoms than a dispositional measure of how they typically cope with pain (Shirkey et al. 2011).”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Shirkey et al. 2011

In the paper

“On the other hand, studies using the PRI have consistently shown that passive coping (e.g., behavioral disengagement, self-isolation, catastrophizing) is related to poorer adjustment (Kaczynski et al. 2011; Shirkey et al. 2011; Simons et al. 2008; Walker et al. 1997, 2005, 2007).”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Kaczynski et al. 2011
• Not checked yetcites Shirkey et al. 2011
• Not checked yetcites Simons et al. 2008

In the paper

“Finally, primary control coping or active coping (both of which include problem-solving and seeking social support) has not been consistently related to adjustment in children and adolescents with RAP.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Thomsen et al. 2002
• Not checked yetcites Compas et al. 2006
• Not checked yetcites Dufton et al. 2011

In the paper

“Because the stress of RAP (i.e., pain) may be largely uncontrollable or perceived as uncontrollable (Walker et al. 2007), it follows that secondary control, or accommodative, coping strategies may be more effective than primary control or active coping strategies.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Walker et al. 2007

In the paper

“Self-Reliant Copers, who relied more on accommodative coping strategies such as acceptance and self-encouragement, had relatively lower levels of depressive symptoms and disability compared to both Dependent and Avoidant Copers.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Walker et al. (2008)

In the paper

“For example, patients labeled Avoidant Copers responded to pain with catastrophizing and activity disengagement and were characterized by high levels of depressive symptoms and disability.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Walker et al. (2008)

In the paper

“Similarly, an experimental study found that symptom-related talk from parents during an induced episode of pain was related to greater child somatic complaints (Williams et al. 2011).”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Williams et al. 2011

In the paper

“Parental reinforcement of pain complaints, or solicitousness (e.g., allowing children to skip chores or homework during pain episodes, or giving a child special gifts or privileges during pain episodes) is related to greater school absences (Levy, 2011).”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Levy, 2011

In the paper

“The child’s efforts at coping may be shaped by parental reinforcement.”

In the paper

“Subsequent analyses indicated that repressors reported significantly fewer depression symptoms than all other personality styles.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Phipps & Srivastava (1997)

In the paper

“The latent coping variables were significantly related to latent indicators of children’s somatic and anxious/depressed symptoms.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Compas et al. (2006)

In the paper

“However, significant heterogeneity was found for 21 of the 24 effect sizes that were estimated, indicating that the association of these four types of coping with adjustment was quite mixed (Aldridge & Roesch 2007).”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Aldridge & Roesch 2007

In the paper

“This study demonstrated that adolescent and parent reports of coping can be meaningfully merged into cohesive latent constructs, reflecting the existence of underlying coping factors separate from informant effects.”

In the paper

“repressors reported significantly fewer depression symptoms than all other personality styles.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Phipps & Srivastava (1997)

In the paper

“When the authors examined several moderating variables, they found that time since diagnosis and type of stressor (e.g., overall cancer stress, venipuncture, chemotherapy) moderated the relationship between different types of coping and adjustment.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Aldridge & Roesch 2007

In the paper

“In comparing the groups on personality style, the authors found that there were significantly more repressors in the cancer group compared to the control group.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Phipps & Srivastava (1997)

In the paper

“Primary control coping significantly moderated the association between negative affectivity and symptoms of depression, such that the association was weaker among children who used more vs. less primary control coping.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Miller et al. (2009)

In the paper

“higher levels of defensiveness were related to lower levels of depression in both the cancer and healthy control groups”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Phipps & Srivastava (1997)

In the paper

“findings for primary control or active coping were less consistent.”

In the paper

“children in the secondary control group showed less distress than children in the other groups in response to medical procedures.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Weisz et al. (1994)

In the paper

“The lack of significant findings concerning disengagement coping and adjustment departs, however, from previous studies (e.g., Connor-Smith & Compas 2004) that have shown disengagement coping to be related to poorer adjustment.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Connor-Smith & Compas 2004

In the paper

“children’s lower social competence in predicting depressive symptoms”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Frank et al. (1997)

In the paper

“parents reported higher levels of children’s emotional and behavioral problems in the primary control group compared to the secondary control group.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Weisz et al. (1994)

In the paper

“the difference between cancer and healthy control groups in avoidant coping was significant but small.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Phipps & Srivastava (1997)

In the paper

“secondary control coping is a good fit with the often uncontrollable aspects of childhood illnesses.”

In the paper

“There were no significant correlations between approach coping and children’s adjustment.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Frank et al. (1997)

In the paper

“This study was the first involving children with cancer to investigate temperament and coping in relation to adjustment”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Miller et al. (2009)

In the paper

“there is substantial evidence that disengagement or passive coping is related to poorer adjustment.”

In the paper

“Correlational analyses showed a significant relation between children’s avoidance coping strategies and their self-reported depressive and anxiety symptoms.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Frank et al. (1997)

In the paper

“Other tests of coping as a moderator between positive/negative affectivity and anxiety/depression were not significant.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Miller et al. (2009)

In the paper

“suggesting that the manner in which trait negative affectivity may lead to depressive symptoms is through relatively less reliance on primary and secondary control methods.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Miller et al. (2009)

In the paper

“avoidance coping was a significant predictor of children’s depressive symptoms and children’s anxiety symptoms”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Frank et al. (1997)

In the paper

“Informational control was not related to adjustment.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Worchel et al. (1987)

In the paper

“regression analyses indicated that secondary control coping fully accounted for the relationship between executive functioning and emotional and behavioral problems in these adolescents.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Campbell et al. (2009)

In the paper

“higher levels of monitoring/information seeking were related to higher levels of depression in both groups.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Phipps & Srivastava (1997)

In the paper

“The use of strategies such as acceptance, cognitive reappraisal, and distraction represent efforts to maximize one’s fit with the demands of an illness and its treatment (Rudolph et al. 1995).”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Rudolph et al. 1995

In the paper

“Decisional control strategies appear to reflect an engagement process characterized by children and adolescents engaging with the stressful situation and attempting to solve related problems and make their own choices.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Worchel et al. (1987)

In the paper

“Cognitive control strategies were significantly related to nurses’ reports of withdrawn and passive non-compliant behavior in children and adolescents.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Worchel et al. (1987)

In the paper

“there is considerable evidence that secondary control or accommodative coping is related to better adjustment to chronic illness.”

In the paper

“a significant effect for children’s depressive attributional style in predicting depressive and anxiety symptoms”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Frank et al. (1997)

In the paper

“children in the secondary control group were less likely to be in the clinical range on internalizing and total behavioral and emotional problems than children in any other coping group.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Weisz et al. (1994)

In the paper

“these findings suggest that children and adolescents who play an active role in treatment-related and life-style related decisions may fare better than other children and adolescents.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Worchel et al. (1987)

In the paper

“avoidant coping (blunting) was not related to depression”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Phipps & Srivastava (1997)

In the paper

“Overall, the authors’ findings support the idea that avoidance, or disengagement, coping strategies are associated with poorer adjustment in children with cancer.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Frank et al. (1997)

In the paper

“Further, coping mediated the relationship between executive function and behavioral/emotional problems in these children.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Campbell et al. (2009)

In the paper

“There is mounting evidence that many chronic illnesses are related to impaired cognitive function in children and adolescents, either as a result of disease processes, aggressive forms of treatment, or both.”

In the paper

“These findings are consistent with other studies, which have failed to find age-related effects despite enrolling children of a large age range, from school-aged children to older adolescents (e.g., Campbell et al., 2009; Frank et al., 1997; Miller et al., 2009).”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Campbell et al., 2009
• Not checked yetcites Frank et al., 1997
• Not checked yetcites Miller et al., 2009

In the paper

“greater primary control coping at baseline was related to greater likelihood of rescue inhaler use, school absenteeism, and physician contact over the following year.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Schreier & Chen (2008)

In the paper

“the low levels of actual or perceived control of many pediatric chronic illnesses does not provide a good context for the use of disengagement or passive coping”

In the paper

“there is evidence to suggest that these impairments may be associated with problems in the ability of children to use the types of complex cognitive coping strategies that are needed to effectively cope with stress.”

In the paper

“In youth with type 1 diabetes, early onset of the disease is one of the strongest predictors of poor neuropsychological performance, with particular deficits in attention and executive function (Guadieri et al. 2008).”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Guadieri et al. 2008

In the paper

“the mixed findings for active or primary control coping may indicate the complexity of the different stressful aspects of illnesses and their treatment.”

In the paper

“A quantitative review (Aldridge & Roesch, 2007) of coping in these children found no significant age-related effects.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites Aldridge & Roesch, 2007

In the paper

“this approach raises concerns that the associations between coping and adjustment are to some degree inflated due to shared method variance in the assessment of these constructs.”