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Coping by children undergoing stressful medical procedures: some conceptual, methodological, and therapeutic issues
Insights
Children
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Psychology
- Developmental Psychology
- Coping Mechanisms
Background:
- Coping strategies vary across individuals, time, and stressors, making their study complex.
- Children's coping is particularly intricate due to their evolving developmental stages influencing stress appraisal and resource availability.
- Recent pediatric psychology research explores children's active, information-seeking versus avoidant coping styles.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review current trends in research on children's coping mechanisms.
- To identify the need for refined conceptualizations and methodologies in pediatric coping research.
- To consider therapeutic implications, particularly regarding preparing avoidant children for medical procedures.
Main Methods:
- Review of recent pediatric psychology studies focusing on children's coping strategies.
- Analysis of trends in active, information-seeking versus avoidant coping in children.
- Examination of developmental influences on children's stress appraisal and coping resource utilization.
Main Results:
- Current research highlights a dichotomy between active, information-seeking and avoidant coping in children.
- The complexity of children's coping is significantly influenced by their developmental level.
- There is a recognized need for more precise conceptual frameworks and robust methodologies in this field.
Conclusions:
- Further research is needed to refine conceptualizations and methodologies for studying children's coping.
- Understanding developmental influences is crucial for accurate assessment of pediatric coping.
- Clinical interventions must consider children's coping styles, especially when preparing them for medical procedures.
Abstract:
Because coping is postulated to change across persons, time, and stressors, the study of coping is inherently complex. These complexities are magnified in children's coping because a child's ability to effectively appraise a stressor and the coping resources that are available is dependent on the child's rapidly shifting developmental level. A small set of recent pediatric psychology studies describes children's active, informative-seeking coping versus avoidant or information-denying coping as an example of current trends in research on children's coping. Review of these studies highlights the need for tighter, more complete conceptualizations and improved methodologies. There are many therapeutic implications of this research, not the least of which is the problem of how (or even if) avoidant children should be prepared for medical procedures.