Abstract
Objective: Millions of children experience injuries annually, and avoidance coping increases risk of negative emotional and physical outcomes after injury. Little is known about how children select avoidance coping strategies. Parents may help their children cope with an injury by encouraging or discouraging the use of specific strategies, such as avoidance coping. The present study examined parental influence of child use of avoidance coping post-injury. Methods: Children ages 8-13 (65% male; 50% White) hospitalized for pediatric injury and their parents (N = 96 child-parent dyads) participated in an interview and discussion task about coping at baseline, and then completed coping/coping assistance measures at three time points: T1 (within 2 weeks post-injury), T2 (6-weeks post-injury), and T3 (12-weeks post-injury). Results: When presented with an ambiguous situation in the observational interview and discussion task, the number of avoidance coping solutions offered by children independently as well as during a discussion with their parent predicted the child's ultimate avoidance versus non-avoidance coping choice. The number of avoidance coping solutions offered by parents did not predict children's final choice to use avoidance coping. Longitudinal data suggest that parent encouragement of avoidance coping predicted child avoidance coping within the first 6-weeks post-trauma. Conclusions: Our study suggests that child avoidance coping is multifaceted and may result from both parent encouragement as well as independent decisions by children. Future research may explore additional factors that influence child avoidance coping, outside of parental suggestion, in response to trauma exposure.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 914-927 |
Number of pages | 14 |
Journal | Journal of Pediatric Psychology |
Volume | 44 |
Issue number | 8 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Sep 1 2019 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2019 The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society of Pediatric Psychology. All rights reserved.
Funding
This work was supported by a Mentored Career Award grant 1K23MH093618-01A1 from the National Institute of Mental Health (PI: Marsac). The authors declare that they have no competing or potential conflicts of interest.
Funders | Funder number |
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National Institute of Mental Health | K23MH093618 |
Keywords
- accidents and injuries
- coping skills and adjustment
- parents
- posttraumatic stress
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Pediatrics, Perinatology, and Child Health
- Developmental and Educational Psychology