Assessment of Stressors and Coping Patterns of Children with Newly Diagnosed Cancer during Invasive Procedure

Background: Children suffering from cancer facing many stressors resulting from cancer,
itstreatment and invasive procedures, these stressors are physical, psychological,social and financial.
Nurses play a vital role in caring and educating those children to improve their knowledge, alleviate
their stressors and promote their positive coping patterns toward cancer during invasive procedures.
Aim of the study: To assess stressors and coping patterns of children with newly diagnosed cancer
during invasive procedures. Research design: A descriptive design was utilized. Subject: A
purposive sample of 60 newly diagnosed child with cancer (school and adolescent children from 6-
18). Setting: At outpatient clinics, inpatient wards in Nasser Institute. Tools: There are three tools
were utilized to collect data: (1): Structured questionnaire format to assess socio demographic
characteristics of the studied children.(2):Child behavior checklists (CBCI), to assess stressors
related to children with cancer. (3): Pediatric cancer coping scale (PCCS) to assess coping in
children with cancer, Results: the study revealed that more than half of the studied children had un
satisfactory knowledge about invasive procedures, less than half of them were exposed to stressors
during invasive procedures and more than one third of them never coping and there was highly
statistically significant difference between child coping domains, child behavior checklists and
child's age, gender, educational level. Conclusion: Children with cancer mainly posed to
psychological stressors such as withdrawn, somatic, anxious /depressed, thought disturbances and
socially as attention disturbances, delinquent, aggressive behavior, and other stressors problems
during invasive procedure and never the children can cope during invasive procedures. In addition,
there are statistically significant between stressors, coping patterns and children characteristics.
Recommendation: Establish training programs for
children with newly diagnosed cancer with
different coping strategies and how to use.