Resilience in mothers and children with cancer

Abstract

Childhood cancer poses many challenges shared during the course of the disease for children and their families, and especially for the mother, which is why this research aims identify characteristics of resiliency between mothers and their respective children these last who have cancer, as well as know the degree of relationship between the two. We had the participation of 60 individuals, of which 30 are children diagnosed with cancer, men and women, between 8 and 17 years of age, and the remaining 30 participants correspond to their respective mothers aged 28 to 60 years. (1) Questionnaire resiliency two resiliency measures were applied for children and (2) scale of resilience (force and personal safety) for adults. The results indicate high resiliency in children in three dimensions (internal, external protective factors, and empathy). The maternal resiliency shows to be high in dimension altruism, followed by a level of resiliency moderate dimensions: self-esteem, family, security, and membership. An association was found between the resilience of children (empathy) and his mother (security). It is concluded that family is essential for the development of the child resiliency protection factor, and especially the mother role is necessary when it comes to children with cancer. It is suggested that the patients, families and professionals are integrated in order to promote the optimal development of children and go beyond just the medical treatment.