Secondary control strategies used by parents of children with cancer

The model of Rothbaum et al. (1982), in which primary and secondary control are outlined in strategies of predictive vicarious, illusory and interpretative control, was used to describe parental efforts to cope with childhood cancer. Primary control strategies are efforts directed at modifying objective conditions (in the case of a life-threatening disease e.g. changing treatment schedules, changing other people's behavior or changes in life-style), whereas secondary control srategies refer to attempts directed at modifying oneself (e.g. changing one's hopes, expectations or interpretations). Manifestations of secondary interpretative, illusory, predictive and vicarious control strategies were operationalized and assessed. Therefore, an inventory with 38 items was administered to 163 parents (n = 84 mothers and n = 79 fathers) of 84 children with cancer with different survival perspectives, that is in remission or with a relapse. Differences according to sex, survival perspective, and educational level were investigated in the use of the four control strategies. Mothers appeared to rely more on interpretative and illusory control than fathers do, while parents of children in remission relied more on predictive and vicarious control. Parents with a lower educational level tended to rely more on all control strategies with the exception of interpretative control.