Mediating effect of children's effortful control between home environment and emotional behavioral problems among preschool children with malignant tumors / 中华行为医学与脑科学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To explore the mediating effect of children's effortful control on the relationship between home environment and children's behavioral emotional problems in preschool children with malignant tumors and to provide evidences for family intervention on behavioral emotional problems in children.Methods:Totally 353 preschool children with malignant tumors were investigated with family adaptation and cohesion evaluation scales II (FACES II), child behavior questionnaire-very short form(CBQ-VSF) and strengths and difficulties questionnaire (SDQ), AMOS 22.0 software was used to construct a structural equation model in data analysis and the Bootstrap method was used to test the mediation effect.Results:The scores of family adaptation and cohesion, children's effortful control, difficulty questionnaire were(51.63±12.41), (55.43±10.16), (3.23±0.80) and (13.75±3.66). The scores of dimensions including emotion, conduct, hyperactivity, peer problems, prosocial of difficulty questionnaire were(2.83±0.90), (2.73±0.96), (2.67±0.93), (2.76±0.85), (2.67±0.85), respectively. Family adaptation and cohesion were positively correlated with children's effortful control ( r=0.244, 0.289, P<0.01). Children's effortful control was negatively correlated with children's behavioral emotional problems ( r=-0.365--0.302, all P<0.05). Family adaptation and cohesion were negatively correlated with children's behavioral/emotional problems ( r=-0.323--0.124, r=-0.342--0.181, all P<0.05). The direct effect value was -0.469, indirect effect value was -0.102, accounting for 17.86% of the total effect. Conclusion:Children's effortful control exert a significant mediating effect on the relationship between home environment and children's behavioral/emotional problems in preschool children with malignant tumors, suggesting that medical staff should pay attention to the level of effortful control of preschool children with malignant tumors in order to take effective actions to reduce children's behavioral/emotional problems and improve social applicability.