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Repressive adaptive style in children with chronic illness
1Division of Behavioral Medicine, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN 38105-2794, USA. sean.phipps@stjude.org
Psychosomatic Medicine
|January 31, 2002
Summary
Repressive adaptation is common in children with serious chronic illnesses, not just cancer. This study also found that anger expression is a useful measure in understanding adaptive styles in these children.
Area of Science:
- Psychology
- Pediatric Oncology
- Child Health
Background:
- Previous research indicated high repressive adaptation in children with cancer.
- The generalizability of these findings to other pediatric chronic illnesses was unclear.
Purpose of the Study:
- To determine if repressive adaptation is unique to pediatric cancer or common in children with chronic illnesses.
- To evaluate the effectiveness of including anger expression in adaptive style assessments.
Main Methods:
- Compared defensiveness, trait anxiety, and anger expression in children with cancer (N=130), chronic illnesses (N=121), and healthy controls (N=368).
- Utilized the adaptive style paradigm to categorize participants as high anxious, low anxious, defensive high anxious, or repressor.
- Analyzed the prevalence of these categories across the three groups.
Main Results:
- Children with cancer and chronic illnesses showed higher defensiveness and lower anxiety than healthy controls.
- A greater proportion of children in the cancer and chronic illness groups were identified as repressors compared to healthy children.
- Repressors reported significantly less anger expression than nonrepressors.
Conclusions:
- Elevated repressive adaptation is characteristic of children with serious chronic illnesses, not exclusive to cancer.
- Measuring anger expression alongside anxiety provides valuable insights into adaptive styles within pediatric chronic illness populations.