A controlled study on the psychological characteristics of children with leukemia and their parents

WANG Hong-mei; CHEN Li-jun; CHEN Wei; REN Wan-hua

Abstract：Objective To evaluate and compare psychosocial characteristics of long-term survivors of childhood leuke-mia, children newly diagnosed with leukemia and their parents. Methods Totally 39 childhood leukemia inpatients treated in Provincial Hospital Affiliated to Shandong University from July 2005 to July 2008 were divided into two groups, including nineteen long-term survivors of childhood leukemia(long survival group)and twenty children newly diagnosed with acute leukemia (newly diagnosed group). Long survivor group, newly diagnosed group and forty age-matched healthy controls (control group) completed the questionnaires allowing assessment of symptoms associated with anxiety, depression and self-concept by using the screen for child anxiety related emotional disorders (SCARED), depression self rating scale for children(DSRSC)and Piers-Harris children's self-concept scale(PHCSS), respectively. At the same time, the anxiety and depression of their parents were also measured using Zung-self-rating anxiety scale (SAS)and self-rating depression scale (SDS). Results Long survivor group scored significantly higher on subscales of somatization/panic, generalized anxiety, social phobia and the total scale than control group(P < 0.05) ,the depression score was higher than that o f the control group, but had no significant difference(P > 0.05). Long survivor group scored significantly higher on subscales of generalized anxiety than newly diagnosed group (P = 0.018). The total score of self-concept of both long survivor group and newly di- agnosed group was significantly lower than that of the control group (P < 0.05) ,in which long survivor group scored sig-nificantly higher on subscales of anxiety and gregarization than control group (P < 0.05) , and newly diagnosed group scored significantly higher on subscales of behavior, intelligence and anxiety than control group (P < 0.05). Long survi-vor group scored significantly higher on subscales of behavior and intelligence than newly diagnosed group (P < 0.05). The anxiety and depression scores of the parents in study group were much higher than that in normal population (P < 0.001) , and the positive rate of anxiety and symptoms in newly diagnosed group was significantly higher than that in long survivor group (P = 0.034). There was a positive relation between the degree of depression and incidence of anxiety (r = 0.95, P < 0.001) ,but no relation between the psychosocial characteristics of childhood leukemia and the anxi-ety-depression situation of their parents(P > 0.05). Conclusion The findings of our studies have suggested that leuke-mia children and their parents are at more risk of having difficulties. Implementation and evaluation of psychological sup-portive interventions should be considered.