Psychological Well-Being and Adjustment to Illness of Adolescents with Cancer
Ionela Bogdan, Loredana Ruxandra Gherasim-Diaconu
Psychological well-being differs from healthy people to chronic patients and a relevant factor involved in this difference is adjustment to illness. Adjustment to illness is essential for the life to continue, as some illnesses are either incurable or very serious, and the recovery process is long, painful and requires sacrifices. Our aims are to (1) investigate the association between psychological well-being and adjustment to illness and (2) identifying the factors of personality and copping strategies which can predict psychological well-being and adjustment to illness seen like the impact of chronic illness in social functioning. We questioned adolescents aged between 11 and 18 years, patients of Oncology Department of Children`s Hospital `Sf. Maria` Iasi. The results show significant correlations between psychological well-being and adjustment to illness in adolescents with cancer, a high level of psychological well-being is associated with a low impact of chronic illness in social function and it were found factors of personality and coping strategies which could predict psychological well-being and adjustment to illness.
psychological well-being, adjustment to illness, cancer, adolescent, impact of illness in social function
IONELA BOGDAN – Al. I. Cuza University, Iaşi, Romania, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences
E-mail: ionela11a@yahoo.com
LOREDANA RUXANDRA GHERASIM-DIACONU – Al. I. Cuza University, Iaşi, Romania, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences
