Subproject 6: Early Childhood

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This area of research focus explores the impacts of strain resulting from oncological illness of a primary caregiver during early childhood on children’s affect- and behavior regulation and parent-child interaction. The extensive clinical standards of our Baby and Toddler Consultation and infant and toddler psychiatry research serve as a basis in this endeavor. The research lead of this subproject is shared with the University of Leipzig Medical Center and Polyclinic for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics.
 
According to the theory of “development windows”, the time at which stressors impact on mental development is of immense importance. During certain periods of early childhood, separation can disrupt attachment development and the relationship between child and parent and can cause anxieties and guilt-laden causality ideations. Whether and how the oncological illness of a parent, which usually leads to phases of separation, impacts on affect- and behavior regulation during early childhood, as well as on parent-child interaction, is a question that has hardly been explored. When treating this field of research, it is important to consider that particularly younger children hardly understand the extent of the potentially fatal threat of cancer, which means that a parents’ reactive depression can have a greater influence on small children’s experience and behavior than the underlying somatic illness. The parents’ experienced strain in their role as a mother or father depends on how young, and respectively, how dependent their children are. 

 

Aims: 

  1. Exploration of the mental health and determination of possible emotional and behavior problems in infants and small children (0 – 4,11 yrs.) of cancer patients
  2. Exploration of the quality of parent-child interaction and determination of possible problems
  3. Exploration of the correlation of parents’ reactive depressive symptoms with the above described child symptoms
  4. Determination of resilience-promoting, protective factors in parent-child interaction
  5. Based on the COSIP Counseling Concept, a counseling module for information and coping assistance for children under 5 years will be developed and tested under consideration of the factors and conditions for successful coping with illness in the family.

 

Data collection in prospective longitudinal design with three measuring points, conform to the network-wide design for the generic evaluation of the COSIP Counseling: pre- post- and follow-up measurement after 6 months.

 

Responsible:

Prof. Dr. med. Dipl.-Psych. Ulrike Lehmkuhl

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Prof. Dr. med. Kai von Klitzing

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Project Management:

Dr. med. Heike Weschenfelder

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Dipl.-Psych. Gabriele Koch

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Charité – University Medical Center Berlin

Campus Virchow-Klinikum

Clinic for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy

Augustenburger Platz 1

13353 Berlin

Telephone: 030 / 450 566 227

Clinic: http://kjp.charite.de

Project: http://kjp.charite.de/patienten/kinder_krebskranker_eltern

 

 

University Medical Center Leipzig

Department for Women’s and Children’s Medicine

University Clinic and Polyclinic for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics

Liebigstraße 20a

04103 Leipzig

Telephone: 0341 / 97 - 2 40 10

Clinic: http://kjp.uniklinikum-leipzig.de/

Project: http://kjp.uniklinikum-leipzig.de/_patienteninfo/abteilung_sprechstunden.html#sprechstunde4