Health Psychology, Vol 42(11), Nov 2023, 767-777; doi:10.1037/hea0001320
Objective: The long-term psychological effects of childhood cancer vary, with childhood cancer survivors reporting depressive symptoms, fear of cancer recurrence, and benefit finding. As cancer is considered a family disease, investigating the parental context may provide insight into such individual differences in psychological functioning of survivors. This study examined the directionality of effects among parental sense of incompetence, parenting dimensions (responsiveness, psychological control, and overprotection), and survivor psychological functioning (depressive symptoms, fear of cancer recurrence, and benefit finding). Method: This three-wave longitudinal study (covering 2 years) included 125 Dutch-speaking childhood cancer survivors (ages 14–24, 95.2% diagnosed