The Relationship between Patient and Parent Posttraumatic Stress in Pediatric Oncology: A Theoretical Framework

The stress and uncertainty surrounding pediatric cancer diagnosis and treatment can be experienced as traumatic by both patients and their parents (e.g., Landolt, Vollrath, Ribi, Gnehm, & Sennhauser, 2003 Landolt, M. A., Vollrath, M., Ribi, K., Gnehm, H. E. and Sennhauser, F. H. 2003. Incidence and associations of parental and child posttraumatic stress symptoms in pediatric patients. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 44(8): 1199–1207. doi:10.1111/1469-7610.00201[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Although previous studies have demonstrated an association between patient and parental posttraumatic stress in pediatric cancer (e.g., Pelcovitz et al., 1998 Pelcovitz, D., Libov, B. G., Mandel, F., Kaplan, S., Weinblatt, M. and Septimus, A. 1998. Posttraumatic stress disorder and family functioning in adolescent cancer. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 11(2): 205–221. doi:10.1023/A:1024442802113[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), a theory-driven model explaining a mutual and ongoing relationship does not appear in the literature. In the current article, we present a theoretical model to explain this relationship and provide an illustrative example of our model. Future directions and clinical implications of the model are also discussed.