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Coping with Chronic Illness in Children and Their Families

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Child and Adolescent Resilience Within Medical Contexts

Abstract

From the perspective of the pediatric psychology literature, we review the extant literature related to stress and coping as it relates to children and adolescents with chronic conditions. To accomplish this, we present two models that have been employed by health psychologists to understand children’s ability to manage the stress of a chronic illness: stress and coping models and social ecological models. We also provide an overview of the impact of systems on child and family psychological adjustment as coping is impacted by families and peers. Since much of our understanding of the coping literature in children has emerged from studies of children with pediatric cancer and their families, we provide an overview of the coping literature among children and adolescents with cancer and their families as well as interventions designed to enhance coping in this population. Finally, we discuss methodological issues in this area of research and provide recommendations for future research efforts in this area.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of North Texas at Dallas, Dallas, TX, USA

    Ronald T. Brown Ph.D.

  2. Department of Psychology, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI, USA

    Mary Jo Kupst Ph.D.

Authors
  1. Ronald T. Brown Ph.D.
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  2. Mary Jo Kupst Ph.D.
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Correspondence to Ronald T. Brown Ph.D. .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Applied Psychology and Human Development Joint Center for Bioethics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Carey DeMichelis

  2. Department of Applied Psychology and Human Development, University of Toronto, OISE, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Michel Ferrari

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Brown, R.T., Kupst, M.J. (2016). Coping with Chronic Illness in Children and Their Families. In: DeMichelis, C., Ferrari, M. (eds) Child and Adolescent Resilience Within Medical Contexts. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32223-0_15

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