Coping and Attachment in Pediatric Oncohematology

Cancer can be a traumatic and particularly salient experience in a person's history. The ways in which the pediatric patient copes with it depend on the interaction of several factors present in his or her life context, primarily the relationship that is established between parent and child. Despite the paucity of studies in the literature in this regard, it would seem that parental coping is predictive of child coping. Coping strategies represent the ways in which people try to manage traumatic events or stressful everyday situations. Currently, the literature identifies two main categories of coping strategies: emotion-oriented and problem-oriented strategies. The former are aimed on reducing stress-induced unpleasant emotions (e.g., problem avoidance, positive reappraisal, etc.); the latter, on the other hand, focus on stress dissolution/alteration (e.g., problem identification and