Parenting Concerns, Psychological Distress, and Relationship Adjustment Among Patients With Cancer and Their Partners: A Longitudinal Study
Funding: This study was supported by grant R01CA201179 from the National Cancer Institute, titled “Couple Communication in Cancer: A Multi-Method Examination”, (Multiple Principal Investigators: Shelby Langer and Laura Porter). Additionally, this work was supported by grant F32CA278417 from the National Cancer Institute awarded to Karena Leo.
ABSTRACT
Objective
Studies have found that cancer patients with dependent children exhibit high symptoms of anxiety, depression, and worry. Patients' parenting concerns can negatively impact their own and their family's adjustment to the cancer experience. However, relatively little is known about parenting concerns of partners of cancer patients, or associations between parenting concerns and couples' relationship adjustment. This longitudinal study investigated parenting concerns among both patients and partners, and their associations with psychological and relationship adjustment.
Methods
One hundred thirty-four patients with cancer and their partners (67 couples) completed the Parenting Concerns Questionnaire at baseline and measures of psychological distress, communication, and relationship adjustment at four time points (baseline, 4-, 8-, and 12-month follow up).
Results
Baseline parenting concerns did not differ by role, gender, cancer site or cancer stage (p > 0.05). Patients and partners who reported higher levels of parenting concerns at baseline reported significantly greater psychological distress and poorer communication concurrently and at each subsequent assessment. There were no significant associations between parenting concerns and relationship satisfaction either concurrently or over time.
Conclusions
These findings reinforce the need for a dyadic perspective to assessing both patients' and partners' parenting concerns and a focus on processes such as communication as an avenue for managing and processing parenting concerns.
Conflicts of Interest
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
Open Research
Data Availability Statement
The de-identified data that support the findings of this study may be made available upon reasonable request and as allowable according to the standards of the institutional review boards by e-mailing the corresponding author.
