The purpose of this study is to identify links between caregiver hope, caregiver coping behaviors, and caregivers' coaching versus dismissing emotion socialization (ES) beliefs in a pediatric cancer sample.
Self-report measures.
Caregivers (N = 183, 80.20% mothers; 58.5% white; 32.2% Hispanic) of youth undergoing cancer treatment (51.10% hematological malignancy, 15.30% brain or spinal [CNS] tumor, and 25.14% non-CNS solid tumor) for at least six weeks.
We used a series of mediation models to examine links between caregivers' coping behaviors, hope, and ES beliefs.
Caregivers' hope significantly mediated a positive relation between caregivers' coping and their emotion coaching beliefs, as well as an inverse relation between caregivers' maladaptive coping and their emotion dismissing beliefs.
Enhancing caregivers' hope or adaptive coping may support caregivers' beliefs during the pediatric cancer experience.
Our findings support future research to evaluate whether enhancing caregivers' hope or adaptive coping may help support evidence-based interventions that target ES beliefs and behaviors.
Keywords: coping; emotion socialization; hope; oncology; parent; pediatric.