Relationships between parent and adolescent/young adult mental health among Hispanic and non-Hispanic childhood cancer survivors

Abstract

Purpose

To examine associations between parents and adolescent and young adult (AYA) childhood cancer survivors’ (CCS) mental health, and differences by Hispanic ethnicity.

Sample

Participants were 129 CCS (M_age = 19.5 yrs.; 49.9% female) and their parents (M_age = 49.0 yrs.; 87.6% female); 52.7% identified as Hispanic.

Methods

CCS completed assessments of Depressive Symptoms (CES-D), Posttraumatic Growth (PTG) and Pediatric Quality of Life (PedsQL), while parents completed CES-D, Perceived Stress (PSS) and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) measures.

Results

After controlling for covariates, all three negative parental mental health measures (Parent CES-D, PSS, and PTSD), were positively associated with CCS CES-D indicating that higher depressive symptoms and stress in parents was associated with higher depressive symptoms in CCS. Parent CES-D was negatively associated with CCS PedsQL and parent PSS was negatively associated with CCS PTG. Moderation analysis revealed parent PSS to be negatively associated with PedsQL and positively related to CES-D among Hispanic families only.

Conclusion

Higher parental negative mental health measures may adversely affect CCS levels of depression, while lower values for parental negative health measures were associated with positive CCS mental health outcomes in AYA. Hispanic parents experience more associations with stress than non-Hispanics.

Implications for psychosocial providers

Long-term survivorship follow-up care guidelines should address the mental health needs of both parents and CCS, paying particular attention to perceived stress in Hispanic families.

Keywords:

• Adolescent
• childhood cancer
• Hispanic
• mental health
• parent-child dyad
• young adult

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Whittier Foundation, grant R01MD007801 from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities of the National Institutes of Health and P30CA014089 and T32CA009492 from the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health. The collection of cancer incidence data used in this study was supported by the California Department of Public Health pursuant to California Health and Safety Code Section 103885; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Program of Cancer Registries, under cooperative agreement 5NU58DP003862-04/DP003862; the National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results Program under contract HHSN261201000140C awarded to the Cancer Prevention Institute of California, contract HHSN261201000035C awarded to the University of Southern California, and contract HHSN261201000034C awarded to the Public Health Institute. The ideas and opinions expressed herein are those of the author(s) and endorsement by the State of California Department of Public Health.