Children's Resiliency, Adjustment, and Coping

Overall Objective: The overall objective of this cross-sectional psychosocial study is to examine illness-related factors, family context factors, and child resiliency as predictors or correlates of child adjustment to leukemia treatment. Primary Objective 1: 1(a): To examine illness-related factors (i.e., child's health and physical functioning and severity of the child's illness) as predictors of child psychological adjustment to leukemia. 1(b): To examine relapse status as a grouping variable affecting child psychological adjustment to leukemia. 1(c): To examine stage of treatment as a grouping variable affecting child psychological adjustment to leukemia. Primary Objective 2:

• To examine family context factors (i.e., family psychosocial risk and parental emotional distress) as correlates of child psychosocial adjustment to leukemia treatment. Primary Objective 3:
• To examine child resiliency as a predictor of child psychological adjustment to leukemia treatment. Secondary Objectives:
• One secondary objective of the study is to examine parental distress as a moderator affecting parental report of child adjustment to leukemia as compared to the child's self-report of adjustment.
• Another secondary objective of the study is to develop a model by which the relative contribution of each predictor variable (as determined by analyses of primary objectives) as well as their interrelatedness can be understood in relation to child psychosocial adjustment.
• A third secondary objective of the study is to examine demographic variables as covariates in the main analyses. These variables include: age, grade, site, gender, ethnicity, type of leukemia, staging, time spent in treatment, age at diagnosis, and whether the child is undergoing standard or experimental treatment.