A child's oncological disease is a highly stressful situation for parents, which can affect family functioning in many aspects. In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, this situation may be further associated with an accumulation of distress. Therefore, the main aim of the study was to analyze differences in hedonic and eudaimonic well-being, as well as in religious and non-religious coping with stress among parents of children with an oncological disease during the COVID-19 pandemic compared to parents of children with cancer before the pandemic. In addition, the study aimed to verify the mediating role of religious and non-religious coping strategies in the relationship between the aforementioned situational conditions and well-being. The study was conducted in two high-reference clinics. A total of 310 parents of children with oncological diseases during the treatment participated in the study. After propensity score matching, 111 pairs were extracted and included in the analyses.
In the series of analyses of variance, higher levels of positive affect and positive reappraisal were observed in the group of parents assessed during the pandemic compared to the analogous group assessed before the pandemic. A series of mediation analyses revealed the mediating role of negative religious coping in the relationship between situational conditions and well-being: lower negative religious coping during the pandemic translated into higher eudaimonic and hedonic well-being. The results indicate that contrary to expectations, the accumulation of stressors did not result in a further deterioration of parental functioning, which may be due to the central nature of the specific stressor, i.e. the child's illness. The study also represents an important contribution to the understanding of religious and non-religious meaning-focused coping in the context of accumulated chronic stress of different origins.