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Psychophysiological Assessment of the Effectiveness of Emotion Regulation Strategies in Childhood
Published on: February 11, 2017
Cognitive Emotion Regulation in Children with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia
M Firoozi1, M A Besharat1, S Pournaghash Tehrani1
1Department of Psychology, Tehran University, Tehran, Iran.
Insights
Children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) exhibit a positive memory bias, recognizing more positive than negative images. This may explain their emotional resilience despite cancer treatment.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Oncology
- Developmental Psychology
- Cognitive Neuroscience
Background:
- Childhood cancer significantly impacts cognitive and social functions.
- Children with cancer often demonstrate surprising emotional compatibility and resilience.
- The underlying mechanisms for this emotional well-being remain largely unexplained.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate emotion regulation strategies in children with cancer.
- Specifically, to examine the ability to ignore negative stimuli.
- To compare emotion regulation in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and healthy peers.
Main Methods:
- Study involved 78 children with ALL and 89 healthy children (ages 3-12).
- Participants viewed positive, negative, and neutral images.
- Children were then asked to identify the displayed images from a set.
Main Results:
- Children with ALL recognized more positive images than negative images compared to controls.
- MANOVA revealed significant differences between groups.
- Factors like age, sex, hospital stay, disease duration, and finances influenced these differences.
Conclusions:
- A positive memory bias may account for lower depression and PTSD symptoms in children with ALL.
- Attention shifting is complex, influenced by neurological factors and family support.
- Understanding these mechanisms can inform supportive care for pediatric cancer patients.
Background:
Childhood cancer, as one of the life threatening and most serious health problems, considerably influences the cognitive and social functions of children with cancer and their families; however, surprisingly enough, these children are quite compatible with their peers and even function better emotionally compared with normal children. This matter still remains to be a mystery.
Methods:
In this study, the ability of ignoring negative stimuli as a technique of emotion regulation was investigated in children with cancer. For this purpose, 78 children (33 girls and 45 boys aged 3 to 12 years) with pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), and 89 healthy children (52 girls and 37 boys aged3 to 12 years) participated in this study. At the first stage, a number of positive,negative and neutral pictures were displayed to children. At the second stage, they were asked to identify the pictures from among a collection.
Results:
Data analysis by MANOVA indicated that children with cancer, compared with healthy children, could recognize more positive images than negative ones. Furthermore, it was found that age, sex, duration of hospital stay, duration of disease and financial situation had an effect on the difference between the two groups.
Conclusion:
Positive bias memory can explain low depression and lack of symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder in children with ALL. Attention shifting is multifactorial phenomenon and neurologic factors and family support play important role in this happening.
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