Coping With Childhood Cancer

This article presents a conceptual framework for studying the impact of childhood cancer on the psychological and social functioning of the patient and the family. A model based on the literature about coping with stress, especially with respect to cancer, and on two psychosocial theories of human behavior (the attribution theory and the social comparison theory) is used as a starting point. The model (1) describes the problems people experience when confronted with a threatening situation, (2) provides a classification of problems that has a manageable number of categories to which problems can be assigned, and (3) gives insight into some important coping strategies that children and their parents use to lessen the impact of those problems. The problem categories and coping strategies of the model are illustrated mainly from findings described in the literature and from information the authors obtained during interviews with patients and parents.