Parental traumatic stress during and after paediatric cancer treatment

Figures & data

Table I.  Characteristics of the study group.

	Parents of children in treatment,% (n)	Parents of children off treatment,% (n)
Mothers	57 (99)	55 (131)
Fathers	43 (76)	45 (107)
Parent's education:
Elementary school only	10 (17)	17 (41)
College/high school	46 (80)	47 (111)
University	44 (77)	35 (84)
Missing data	0.6 (1)	0.8 (2)
Born in Sweden	79 (139)	83 (198)
Immigrant to Sweden	21 (36)	17 (40)
Child had not suffered a relapse	92 (161)	90 (215)
Child was in treatment for relapse	8 (14)	n.a.
Child had completed successful treatment for relapse	n.a.	10 (23)
	mean (SD); range	mean (SD); range
Age of child at assessment, years	7 (5); 0.1/ 20	10 (6); 0.2/ 23
Time from child's cancer diagnosis to assessment, months	10 (15); 1/ 74	32 (18); 1/ 72

n.a.: not applicable

Table II.  Comparison of traumatic stress in parents of children in cancer treatment and parents of children off cancer treatment.

	Parents of children in treatment (n = 175)	Parents of children off treatment (n = 238)
Intrusion, mean (SD)	13.2 (7.6)***	9.7 (7.4)
Avoidance, mean (SD)	6.0 (5.1) ^n.s.	5.4 (5.9)
Arousal, mean (SD)	7.6 (5.8)***	5.0 (5.1)
Intrusion, “quite a bit” or “extremely”	71%	59%
Avoidance, “quite a bit” or “extremely”	37%	28%
Arousal, “quite a bit” or “extremely”	54%	29%

*** p<.001; n.s.: not significant