Stress and Coping in Caregivers of Younger Patients With Cancer

Completed

Interventions: Other: Laboratory Biomarker Analysis
Other: Physiologic Testing
Other: Questionnaire Administration

Brief Summary: 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.

Detailed Description: 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.

Recruitment & Eligibility

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)

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Ancillary-Correlative (stress and coping)	Laboratory Biomarker Analysis	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.
Ancillary-Correlative (stress and coping)	Questionnaire Administration	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.
Ancillary-Correlative (stress and coping)	Physiologic Testing	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.

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Level of Caregiver Distress as measured by multiple regressions analysis	Up to 1 year	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.

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method

Locations (2): Comprehensive Cancer Center of Wake Forest University
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Winston-Salem, North Carolina, United States
Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center
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Winston-Salem, North Carolina, United States