Ego Identity Development of Adolescents with Cancer

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The literature on the psychological adjustment of adolescents with cancer contains many contradictions. The current sudy assessed the psychosocial adjustment of teen-age cancer patients from a developmental perspective. Forty-two adolescents with cancer and healthy matched controls were administered Archer and Waterman''s (1982) Ego Identity Interview and Marcia''s (1966) Ego Identity Incomplete Sentence Blank. Healthy adolescents attained significantly higher identity status levels in the interview content areas of career, marriages, and children, but not religion, and also achieved higher Ego Identity scores. The implications of these findings for prevention and treatment are discussed.