[Siblings of children with cancer: integration of illness experiences into personal life history].

Based on the hypothesis that personal narratives help to cope people with stressful life events, 33 adult siblings of former childhood cancer patients were asked how they had experienced illness and treatment of their brother or sister. Analysis of the narratives was used to measure the integration of these experiences into personal biography. Good integration correlated positively with good body concepts. Siblings with good integration also scored lower for fatalistic health locus of control and perceived the illness retrospectively as more distressing than those with poor integration. In contrast, integration did not correlate with distress evoked by present feelings towards illness and therapy or by thoughts of a relapse or a personal cancer illness. The findings of this exploratory investigation may suggest that successful integration of the experiences associated with a brother's or sister's cancer is associated with a trustful relation to the own body and with the ability to accept painful feelings and to allow them to emerge. Assisting siblings of young cancer patients to create and maintain their personal narratives of their experiences can make an important contribution to coping.