This study is designed to 1) investigate how off-treatment adolescent cancer patients re-integrate normative developmental tasks when faced with the residual burdens of cancer diagnosis and treatment and 2) how family process characteristics influence the adequacy and rapidity of adolescent psychosocial re-integration following cessation of cancer treatment. Given that advances in cancer treatment have enabled a greatly improved likelihood of long-term survival for many adolescent cancer patients, this process of re-integration has become particularly germane. A nonequivalent control group design with multi-method (self-report, interviewer rating, observer rating, coding of family interaction) multi-wave assessment (T1- T4) will be sued to collect longitudinal data from a final sample of 100 adolescent cancer patients and their families. Data concerning three sets of variables will be collected: Medical parameters, adolescent psychosocial functioning and family context. Each patient and their family will be evaluate prior to cessation of cancer treatment and at three times over a 24 month """"""""re-entry"""""""" period. In addition, a subset of the sample will be enrolled in a family-centered, psychoeducational program, aimed at evoking a facilitative family context for post-treatment re-entry. Multivariate data analyses will be used to examine the longitudinal course of adolescent cancer patients' and their families post-treatment re-entry to normative developmental activities and to determine whether family context influences the rapidity and adequacy of the adolescent's re-entry. We expect the findings from this study will advance knowledge of the processes by which off-treatment adolescent cancer patients resume normative activities following active treatment, and how certain family characteristics promote or impede this re-entry process. These issues may also be relevant to the promotion of mental health among other chronically ill adolescents and their families.
