Parental palliative cancer: psychosocial adjustment and health-related quality of life in adolescents participating in a German family counselling service

Parental palliative disease is a family affair, however adolescent's well-being and coping are still rarely considered. The objectives of this paper were a) to identify differences in psychosocial adjustment and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) among adolescents and young adults with pare...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:BMC palliative care 2012-10, Vol.11 (1), p.21-21, Article 21
Main Authors: Kühne, Franziska, Krattenmacher, Thomas, Bergelt, Corinna, Ernst, Johanna C, Flechtner, Hans-Henning, Führer, Daniel, Herzog, Wolfgang, Klitzing, Kai V, Romer, Georg, Möller, Birgit
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescents
Cancer
Care and treatment
Children & youth
Coping
Domestic relations
Family
Family psychotherapy
Health aspects
Health-related quality of life
Mediation
Medical research
Medicine, Experimental
Palliative care
Palliative treatment
Parenting
Psychiatric services
Psychological aspects
Psychosocial adjustment
Quality of life
Social aspects
Studies
Teenagers
Youth
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Summary:Parental palliative disease is a family affair, however adolescent's well-being and coping are still rarely considered. The objectives of this paper were a) to identify differences in psychosocial adjustment and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) among adolescents and young adults with parents suffering from palliative cancer or cancers in other disease stages, b) to relate psychosocial adjustment and health-related quality of life to adolescent coping, and c) to explore significant mediator and predictor variables. Cross-sectional data were derived from a multi-site research study of families before child-centered counselling. N=86 adolescents and young adults were included, their mean age 13.78 years (sd 2.45), 56% being female. Performed analyses included ANCOVA, multiple linear regression, and mediation analysis. Adolescents with parents suffering from palliative cancers reported significantly less total psychosocial problems, and better overall HRQoL. There were no significant group differences regarding coping frequency and efficacy. Our set of coping items significantly mediated the effect of parental disease stage on psychosocial problems and HRQoL. Further, parental disease status and general family functioning predicted psychosocial problems (R2adj =.390) and HRQoL (R2adj =.239) best. The study indicates distress among adolescents throughout the entire parental disease process. Our analysis suggests that counselling services could offer supportive interventions which focus particularly on adolescent coping as well as family functioning.
ISSN:1472-684X
1472-684X
DOI:10.1186/1472-684X-11-21