Social comparisons and quality of life among survivors of childhood cancerand their mothers

Sixty-three survivors of childhood cancer (mean age 17 years), currently we ll and off-treatment, and their mothers were interviewed individually about their experiences and the impact of their illness on their lives. Survivor s also completed four questionnaire measures of different aspects of qualit y of life (perceptions of illness experience. future worries, health proble ms and body image satisfaction), whereas mothers recorded their perceptions of their child's quality of life on the same four scales. These scales sho wed good internal consistency and convergent validity for both survivors an d mothers. Mothers also completed a measure of their own quality of life (t he SF-36). The interviews with both survivors and mothers were content-anal ysed for statements expressing social comparisons. These statements were co ded according to whether the comparison implied a favourable, neutral or un favourable evaluation of the individual survivor. Mothers who made a higher proportion of unfavourable comparisons reported worse adjustment for their child on all four scales and described their own quality of life more nega tively. Among survivors, those who made a higher proportion of unfavourable comparisons gave significantly more negative self-ratings on one of the fo ur scales. Correlations between survivors' and mothers' ratings on the four scales were positive, but comparatively low. This reinforces concerns abou t using parents as proxy judges of young people's quality of life, although the correlations were more satisfactory in the case of younger rather than older (>18.5 years) survivors. Mothers who rated their own quality of life as less satisfactory reported more problems for their child on all four sc ales, irrespective of how the survivors described themselves.