Brief report: psychosocial functioning of fathers as primary caregivers of pediatric oncology patients

Title

Brief report: psychosocial functioning of fathers as primary caregivers of pediatric oncology patients

Creator

Bonner MJ; Hardy KK; Willard VW; Hutchinson KC

Publisher

Journal of Pediatric Psychology

Date

2007

Subject

Child; Humans; Male; Adult; Questionnaires; Social Adjustment; Psychology; Stress; Social Behavior; Psychological/diagnosis/epidemiology/psychology; Caregivers/statistics & numerical data; Disabled Children/statistics & numerical data; father experience; Fathers/psychology/statistics & numerical data; Neoplasms/epidemiology

Description

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the psychosocial functioning of fathers as primary caregivers of pediatric oncology patients. METHODS: Fathers who identified themselves as the primary medical caregivers were given a packet of questionnaires, including the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI), the Impact of Event Scale (IES), the Impact on Family Scale (IFS), the Caregiver Strain Questionnaire (CGSQ), and the Parent Experience of Child Illness (PECI) scale, to complete and return by mail. The 23 fathers who returned the questionnaire packets were compared with 23 mothers who were matched on demographic variables. RESULTS: There were no differences between groups on self-report measures of distress or illness-related parenting stress. Descriptively, however, the majority of parents were above normative means on measures of psychological distress with a significantly greater proportion of fathers endorsing elevated levels of depression on the BSI. CONCLUSION: Including fathers in pediatric psychosocial research is important and represents a growing trend in psycho-oncology.
2007

Rights

Article information provided for research and reference use only. PedPalASCNET does not hold any rights over the resource listed here. All rights are retained by the journal listed under publisher and/or the creator(s).

Type

Journal Article

Citation List Month

Backlog

Citation

Bonner MJ; Hardy KK; Willard VW; Hutchinson KC, “Brief report: psychosocial functioning of fathers as primary caregivers of pediatric oncology patients,” Pediatric Palliative Care Library, accessed March 29, 2024, https://pedpalascnetlibrary.omeka.net/items/show/14228.