Stress and Coping in Caregivers of Younger Patients With Cancer

Wake Forest University Health Sciences163 enrolled

Overview

This research trial studies stress and coping in caregivers of younger patients with cancer. Learning how caregivers of children with cancer experience and cope with chronic stress may help to develop effective programs for reducing caregiver stress.

PRIMARY OBJECTIVES: I. To determine how the experience of distress and use of positive emotion coping strategies by pediatric cancer caregivers differs from caregivers of children with no chronic illnesses. II. To determine how relationships between positive coping strategies and caregiver distress change during the different phases of a child's illness. III. To explore how chronic caregiver stress affects physiological reactivity to and recovery from an acute laboratory stressor. IV. To explore how different positive coping mechanisms help chronically stressed caregivers recover from acute stressors and how these efficacies change during the different phases of the child's illness. OUTLINE: PART I: Participants complete a questionnaire that measures several psychological constructs including stress, anxiety, depression, coping mechanisms, uncertainty, positive and negative emotions, and life satisfaction over 15-30 minutes. PART II: Participants undergo a Trier Social Stress Test during a laboratory session over 1.5 hours.

Study Type

OBSERVATIONAL

Enrollment

163

Conditions

Anxiety Depression

Interventions

Laboratory Biomarker AnalysisOTHER

Correlative studies

Physiologic TestingOTHER

Undergo Trier Social Stress Test

Questionnaire AdministrationOTHER

Complete questionnaire

Eligibility

Sex: ALLMin age: 18 YearsHealthy volunteers:

Medical Language ↔ Plain English

Inclusion Criteria: * Ability to read and speak English * Must serve as a primary caregiver of their child (ages 0-17) - as reported by the participant * Ability to understand and the willingness to sign a written informed consent document Exclusion Criteria: * (Part 1 and Part 2): Must not have a family member who has already participated in the study * (Part 2): Must not be pregnant or have a history of cardiovascular disease, hypertension, pituitary disorder, or adrenal disorder * CONTROL PARTICIPANTS: (Part 1 and Part 2): Participants must not have a child with a chronic illness (e.g., diabetes, asthma, multiple sclerosis)

Locations (2)

Comprehensive Cancer Center of Wake Forest University

Winston-Salem, North Carolina, United States

Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center

Winston-Salem, North Carolina, United States

Outcomes

Primary Outcomes

Level of Caregiver Distress as measured by multiple regressions analysis

To examine whether coping styles alone predict psychosocial outcomes, a simple multiple regressions will be conducted with coping styles (approach and avoidant positive emotion coping strategies) as the predictors and the psychosocial outcomes as dependent variables. To examine whether treatment status moderates the impact of coping style on psychosocial outcomes, a multiple regressions with treatment status will be conducted, each coping style individually, and an interaction term of treatment status coping style in predicting each of the psychosocial outcomes.

Time frame: Up to 1 year

Data from ClinicalTrials.gov

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