The Impact of Childhood Cancer: A Two-Factor Model of Coping.

A review of existing stress and coping models and an analysis of the distress caused by childhood cancer suggest that a broader conceptualization of coping that includes "pleasure management" is needed. Presently, successful coping is identified as the employment of strategies which allow the individual to adapt to stress. Traditional stress management models appear to be exclusively concerned with adjustment to high levels of negative affect and ignore the dimension of positive affect. Research findings, however, reveal an additional, distinct and independent dimension of the coping process that can be called "pleasure management." This dimension consists of parents' attempts to counteract the depression and anxiety evident in the stressful situation of their severely ill children. Such attempts enable parents to continue functioning in their caregiving and associated roles. This conceptualization of stress management and pleasure management as independent dimensions rests on empirical work which investigates the structure of mood and psychological well-being. Results of these investigations indicate that positive and negative affect is related to mood, anxiety, depression, and major dimensions of personality. (Author/RH)