Background: Cancer diagnosis is the biggest stress for the child and his family. Diagnosis and treatment of cancer in children can cause stress, which often has a negative effect on the health of parents. Psychological reactions such as anxiety, depression, denial and loss of confidence in parents observed that because of the fear of recurrence and future of children. This study aimed to determine the level of stress and anxiety and depression in parents of children with leukemia who were in the maintenance phase of treatment.
Methods: This cross-sectional study has been conducted on 48 parents have referred to the clinic of Dr. Sheikh Hospital of Mashhad City, Iran, whom selected using easy sampling method. DASS-21 questionnaire was used for data collection. Another questionnaire containing demographic information such as age, sex, income, educational level and duration of illness was filled under supervision of the psychologist and pediatric physician. Data with SPSS software, ver. 20 (IBM, Armonk, NY, USA), descriptive statistics and Pearson correlation analysis was performed. Results: The results showed that in this study, 37% had abnormal stress levels (33% and 2% of mild stress, moderate stress and severe stress 2%) and 79% had abnormal anxiety level (mild 19%, moderate 31% and severe 29%) and 67% had abnormal depression level (mild 33%, moderate depression 33%) tests, respectively. In our study, there was no relationship between age, sex and duration of illness with these variables. |
Conclusion: According to this study, in addition to the classic treatment of patients, parent’s mental performance should be paid attention.
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