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The diagnosis, treatment, and side effects of childhood cancer have been described as extremely stressful experiences in the life of a child. Anecdotally, children report that a sense of humor helps them cope with the daily experiences of living with cancer; however, no research has examined sense of humor and childhood cancer stressors. This study investigated the effect of sense of humor on the relationship between cancer stressors and children's psychosocial adjustment to cancer, immune function, and infection using Lazarus and Folkman's theory of stress, appraisal, and coping. A direct relationship was observed between sense of humor and psychosocial adjustment to cancer, such that children with a high sense of humor had greater psychological adjustment, regardless of the amount of cancer stressors. A moderating effect was observed for incidence of infection. As childhood cancer stressors increase, children with high coping humor scores reported fewer incidences of infection than low scorers. Copyright © 2003 by Association of Pediatric Oncology Nurses [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past 20 years, nurses have become concerned with children's response to stressors and their ability to cope with them. Humor is one strategy that pediatric nurses can use to help children cope with illness and hospitalizations. Although there is little scientific research, there is some theoretical and anecdotal support for the use of humor as a coping strategy. Understanding the developmental aspect of humor is essential for nurses and families, and McGhee's developmental stages of humor are linked to Piagetian stages of cognitive development. Additional discussion describes related diagnoses, assessment, and outcomes for humor interventions as well as considerations for determining the appropriate and inappropriate use of humor. Numerous activities to implement humor in pediatric clinical settings are presented. The need for further research to evaluate humor intervention as an effective coping strategy is recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]