Assessing the Relationship between PTSS in Childhood Cancer Survivors and Their Caregivers and Their Quality of Life

Abstract

Childhood cancer is a traumatic experience for survivors and their families. The experience of this disease affects survivors' and families’ quality of life, even years after it occurs. The purpose of the present study was to assess if the caregivers’ posttraumatic stress symptoms mediated the associations between survivors’ posttraumatic stress symptoms and caregivers’ quality of life, in a sample of 46 dyads of caregivers and childhood cancer survivors. Survivors and caregivers completed the PCL-5, and caregivers completed the WHOQOL-bref. Results showed that survivors’ and caregivers’ posttraumatic stress symptoms scores and caregivers’ quality of life were associated. The caregivers’ posttraumatic stress symptoms mediated the relationship between survivors’ posttraumatic stress symptoms and caregivers’ quality of life. Knowing posttraumatic stress symptoms direct and indirect effects on caregivers’ quality of life contributes to understand their experience and to develop intervention strategies with this population.

Keywords:

• Cancer survivors
• mental health
• posttraumatic stress symptoms
• quality of life

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Danielle Kirsch, Franciele Peloso, Luísa Vital, Luiza Pavalello, and Luana Thums for the support to collect data. We also thank Doctor Simone Selistre for her assistance in the recruitment of participants for the research.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflict of interest.

Ethics statement

Ethics Committee approved the research project according to Brazil's rules (CAAE no 66321317.6.1001.5344). All participants signed the Informed Consent.

Figure 1. Model 1, depicting mediating effect of parents’ post-traumatic symptoms on the link between survivors’ post-traumatic symptoms and parents’ QoL.

Notes: Path a: The effect of the independent variable (IV) on the proposed mediator (M); Path b: The effect of M on the dependent variable (DV) partialing out the effect of IV; Path c: The total effect of IV on DV; Path c’: The direct effect of IV on DV after controlling for M. The italic non-bold figure represents the coefficient for the indirect path. All values are unstandardized. * p < 0.05. ** p < 0.01. Path a: p = 0.08; Path b: p = 0.01; Path c: p = 0.01; Path c’: p = 0.03. The indirect effect was significant at 95% CI [-0.1283/-0.0013].

Additional information

Funding

The research project was funded by CNPq/Brazil (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico – no 306925/2016-8) and Fapergs/Brazil (Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Rio Grande do Sul – no 17/1110-4)