Coping among children and adolescents with chronic illness |
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| Authors: | Petra Hampel Hiltrud Rudolph Rainer Stachow Ankatrin Laß-Lentzsch Franz Petermann |
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| Institution: | 1. Center of Clinical Psychology and Rehabilitation , University of Bremen , Germany petra@uni-bremen.de;3. Clinic for Children and Adolescents with Chronic Diseases , Sylt, Germany (Fachklinik Sylt);4. Clinic for Family-Centered Rehabilitation of Children and Adolescents with Cancer , Sylt, Germany (Syltklinik);5. Center of Clinical Psychology and Rehabilitation , University of Bremen , Germany |
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| 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 (8–13 years of age) with asthma (n=47), atopic dermatitis (n=52), and cancer (n=57) were compared to healthy controls (n=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 self-instructions 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. |
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| Keywords: | Coping chronic illness children adolescents |
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