The mediating role of caregiver hope in relations among caregivers' coping and emotional socialization beliefs in pediatric oncology.

The purpose of this study is to identify links between caregiver hope, caregiver coping behaviors, and caregivers' coaching versus dismissing emotion socialization (ES) beliefs in a pediatric cancer sample.Self-report measures.Caregivers (N = 183, 80.20% mothers; 58.5% white; 32.2% Hispanic) of youth undergoing cancer treatment (51.10% hematological malignancy, 15.30% brain or spinal [CNS] tumor, and 25.14% non-CNS solid tumor) for at least six weeks.We used a series of mediation models to examine links between caregivers' coping behaviors, hope, and ES beliefs.Caregivers' hope significantly mediated a positive relation between caregivers' coping and their emotion coaching beliefs, as well as an inverse relation between caregivers' maladaptive coping and their emotion dismissing beliefs.Enhancing caregivers' hope or adaptive coping may support caregivers' beliefs during the pediatric cancer experience.Our findings support future research to evaluate whether enhancing caregivers' hope or adaptive coping may help support evidence-based interventions that target ES beliefs and behaviors.

Improvements in Psychosocial Outcomes Following a Summer Camp for Youth with Bleeding Disorders and Their Siblings.

PURPOSE: Complications from bleeding episodes from hemophilia can interfere with children's lives and lead to negative psychosocial outcomes. The purpose of this study is to evaluate whether attitude toward illness, hope, perception of illness benefit and/or burden, and/or illness knowledge change for youth with bleeding disorders and their siblings following a five-day education and activity focused summer camp. We hypothesized that youth with bleeding disorders' attitude toward illness, hope, perception of illness benefit, and illness knowledge would improve after camp attendance, and perception of illness burden would decease after camp attendance. We hypothesized that siblings' hope and illness knowledge would improve after camp attendance. DESIGN AND METHODS: A total of 98 youth (M = 10.9, SD = 3.33, 61.2% male) who attended a bleeding disorder summer camp participated in this study. Fifty percent of participants were diagnosed with either Hemophilia A, Hemophilia B (5%), Von Willebrand Disease (VWD) (28.3%), or platelet deficiency (1.7%), with 38 campers consisting of healthy siblings. The camp hosted "Learning about Hemophilia" breakout sessions for campers. Participants completed self-report questionnaires on the first day and last day of camp. RESULTS: Of participants with bleeding disorders, illness knowledge, perception of illness benefit, and attitude toward their illness significantly improved from pre-camp to post-camp. Hope did not significantly improve among youth with bleeding disorders. Healthy siblings' total hope significantly improved while illness knowledge remained constant. CONCLUSIONS: Summer camps are a promising intervention to improve psychosocial outcomes in youth with hemophilia and WVD. CONCLUSIONS: Summer camps are a promising intervention to improve psychosocial outcomes in youth with hemophilia and WVD.