No abstract

The diagnosis, treatment, and side effects of childhood cancer have been described as extremely stressful experiences in the life of a child. Anecdotally, children report that a sense of humor helps them cope with the daily experiences of living with cancer; however, no research has examined sense of humor and childhood cancer stressors. This study investigated the effect of sense of humor on the relationship between cancer stressors and children's psychosocial adjustment to cancer, immune function, and infection using Lazarus and Folkman's theory of stress, appraisal, and coping. A direct relationship was observed between sense of humor and psychosocial adjustment to cancer, such that children with a high sense of humor had greater psychological adjustment, regardless of the amount of cancer stressors. A moderating effect was observed for incidence of infection. As childhood cancer stressors increase, children with high coping humor scores reported fewer incidences of infection than low scorers.

School-age children use humor to form relationships with peers and adults, to celebrate life through expressions of joy and laughter, to play with words to develop cognitive and linguistic competence, and as a way of coping with the psychological, social, and physical constraints of growing up. The purpose of this study was to gain insight into school-age children's understanding of humor and explore ways the children use humor to cope with daily life stressors using focus group methodology. In this study, eleven focus groups were conducted with four to six participants in each group at a local elementary and middle school. As anticipated, the developmental level influenced the type of humor the child thought was funny ranging from recalled riddles of second graders to more complex jokes and humorous observations of fourth graders to elaborate jokes and spontaneous witticisms from the sixth graders. Gender also played a role, with tickling being a common theme among the girls and the minor misfortunes of others among the boys. The children used humor to help them cope with the daily life stressors associated with interpersonal relationships, school and after-school activities, and life at home.

No abstract

No abstract