A comparison of coping styles between mothers and fathers of children diagnosed with cancer: A specialized focus on fathers.

摘要

The study compares coping of mothers and fathers with a child diagnosed with cancer as measured by the Brief COPE. Moreover, a specialized focus on the subgroup of fathers is conducted due to limited research on paternal coping with the illness of cancer. Fathers' coping style is assessed in order to determine if gender of the child influences the fathers' coping as measured on the Brief COPE. Additionally, fathers' responses on the Beck Depression Inventory-II and the Brief COPE are compared to determine to what extent the fathers' reported level of coping (Brief COPE) correlates with degree of depressive symptomatology as measured by the Beck Depression Inventory-II. Moreover, the scores on the Beck Anxiety Inventory were compared between mothers and fathers in order to better understand how parents experience depression. Exploratory research includes the development of a regression model utilizing gender of parent, gender of child, length of time since first diagnosis of the child, ethnicity, socioeconomic level, and age of parent as predictor variables. Criterion variables for the model are the scores obtained from the Beck Depression Inventory-II and the Brief Cope.Beck, A. T., Brown, G., & Steer, R. A. (1996). Beck Depression Inventory II manual. San Antonio, TX: The Psychological Corporation. Carver, C. S. (1997). You want to measure coping but your protocol is too long: Consider the Brief COPE [electronic version]. International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 4(1), 92-100.