Affiliations: [a]
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, USA
| [b]
University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA
| [c]
Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center, Boston, MA, USA
| [d]
National Changhua University of Education, Changhua City, Taiwan
Correspondence:
[*]
Address for correspondence: David R. Strauser, Ph.D., De-partment of Kinesiology and Community Health, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 213A Huff Hall, 1206 South Fourth Street, Champaign, IL 61820, USA. E-mail: strauser@illinois.edu.
Note: [1] Present address: Stanford University.
Abstract: BACKGROUND:Although the majority of childhood cancer survivors make successful transitions to adulthood, research suggests that a significant group experiences ongoing medical concerns, such as psychological distress, that significantly impact the achievement of crucial social roles including employment. OBJECTIVE:The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between career decision making, core self-evaluations, and perceived internal and external barriers to employment in a sample of young adult central nervous system tumor survivors. METHOD:A sample of 110 young adult survivors of pediatric central nervous system tumors was surveyed. Mediation analysis with structural equational modeling was used to correlate a number of different measures (Career Decision Making [CTI], Perceived Employment Barriers [PEB], and Core-Self Evaluations [CSE]). RESULTS:The presence of both significant direct and indirect effects of career decision making on perceived employment barriers implied that there was a partial mediating effect of core self-evaluations on the association between career readiness and employment barriers. CONCLUSION:Career decision-making is a robust construct that can be applied to young adult central nervous system tumor survivors in effort to gain more insight into the vocational psychological factors that impact career development and employment in this group. Core self-evaluations was found to be a mediator between career decision making and perceived career barriers.
Keywords: Core self-evaluations, career readiness, young adult, central nervous system cancer, vocational rehabilitation
