Subjective Well-Being in Pediatric Oncology Patients Caroline McKnight Hexdall & E. Scott Huebner Received: 11 January 2008 / Accepted: 21 January 2008 / Published online: 4 March 2008 # Springer Science + Business Media B.V./ The International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies (ISQOLS) 2008 Abstract Using negative and positive measures of subjective well-being (SWB), we compared reports of 29 youth with cancer to a matched control sample of 29 youth. Youth with cancer did not differ from healthy controls on self-report measures of life satisfaction, hope, positive affect, or negative affect. Scores on measures of hope were positively correlated with time since diagnosis; none of the other SWB variables was significantly related to time since diagnosis. Except for negative affect, moderate correlations were found between parents’ reports of their own SWB and their youths’ self-reported SWB. Parents’ estimates of their youths’ SWB were also moderately associated with youth self-reports, except for negative affect. Parents of youth with cancer and their youth may use different criteria for reporting the nature and frequency of negative affect, but use similar criteria for reporting positive affect and other positive measures (hope, life satisfaction). Implications for more comprehensive assessments of the well-being of pediatric oncology patients are discussed. Keywords Youth with cancer . Subjective well-being . Life satisfaction . Hope Subjective Well-Being in Pediatric Oncology Patients Advances in medicine have transformed the diagnosis of childhood cancer from meaning almost certain mortality to a chronic illness with a strong possibility of survival. Over the years, pediatric psychologists have sought to improve the quality of life for individuals diagnosed with cancer, have developed interventions to aid in coping, management of pain or other physical and psychological side effects, and Applied Research in Quality of Life (2007) 2:189–208 DOI 10.1007/s11482-008-9037-7 C. M. Hexdall Center for Development and Learning, University of North Carolina, CB #7255, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA e-mail: caroline.mcknight@cdl.unc.edu E. S. Huebner (*) School Psychology Program, Department of Psychology, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208, USA e-mail: Huebner@sc.edu