Patterns of Spillover Between Marital Adjustment and Parent-Child Conflict During Pediatric Cancer Treatment

Abstract

Objective: When a child is diagnosed with cancer, problems may arise in family relationships and negatively affect child adjustment. The current study examined patterns of spillover between marital and parent-child relationships to identify targets for intervention aimed at ameliorating family conflict.

Method: Families (N = 117) were recruited from two US children's hospitals within 2-week postdiagnosis to participate in a short-term prospective longitudinal study. Children with cancer were 2-10 years old (M = 5.42 years, SD = 2.59). Primary caregivers provided reports of marital and parent-child conflict at 1-, 6-, and 12-month postdiagnosis.

Results: Results indicated that a unidirectional model of spillover from the marital to the parent-child relationship best explained the data. In terms of specific temporal patterns, lower marital adjustment soon after diagnosis was associated with an increase in parent-child conflict 6 months later, though this pattern was not repeated in the latter 6 months of treatment.

Conclusion: Targeting problems in marital relationships soon after diagnosis may prevent conflict from developing in the parent-child relationship.

Figure 1.

Theoretical models for unidirectional vs. reciprocal nested model comparisons. See Table II for model fit and comparisons.

Figure 2.

Final substantive model with standardized path estimates. χ² (9) = 12.18, p =.12; CFI =.99; RMSEA =.05. Auxiliary correlates were included but are not depicted for clarity (see ‘Data Analytic Strategy’ section for more information).