Children’s pain coping styles with oncological and chronic disease as a predictor of parenting stress.

The parenting can be for itself a specific stressor (Abidin, 1996): the oncological or chronic disease of a child can render the role of parents even more difficult. The clinical sample is composed of 26 children (males=19, females=7; age: m=8,7; s.d.=1,5) with oncological or chronic disease, and their 27 parents (fathers=10, mothers=15, couple=1; age: m=35,3; s.d.=2,1). The parents have scores of “Total Stress”, measured with Parenting Stress Index – short form (Guarino et al., 2008), significatively higher than normative sample. Mothers have higher scores in “Parental Distress” subscale than fathers (t=2,135; d.f.=25; sig.=,043). Linear regression analysis indicates that the children’s pain coping style of “Seek of Social Support”, measured with Pediatric Pain Coping Inventory (Bonichini et al, 2000), explains significative high level of “Total Stress” (R=,425; RSquare=,180; F=5,282; d.f.=24; sig.=,031). This study underlies, besides children disease status, the great influence of their pain coping styles on high level of parenting stress.