Depression Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Depression, including details on clinical depression, medication, symptoms, treatment, counselling, therapy.

Repressive adaptive style and self-reported psychological functioning in adolescent cancer survivors.

Erickson SJ, Gerstle M, Montague EQ

Department of Psychology, Logan Hall, University of New Mexico, MSC03 2220, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA. erickson@unm.edu

Low levels of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS), and psychosocial distress have been reported in pediatric cancer survivors. One explanation is the relatively high prevalence of the repressive adaptive style (low distress, high restraint) in this population. We investigated the relationship between this adaptive style and PTSD, PTSS, and psychosocial functioning in 29 adolescent cancer survivors (12 through 18 years). Adolescents categorized as repressors (n = 14) reported moderate/large effect size differences in PTSD, PTSS, and psychosocial distress (lower) as well as QOL (better) compared to non-repressors. Furthermore, repressors reported less PTSD and QOL variability. Thus, the repressive adaptive style, pronounced in this population, may obscure systematic and clinically meaningful adaptive style group differences across psychological measures.

Published 12 June 2008 in Child Psychiatry Hum Dev, 39(3): 247-60.
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