Low Depressive Symptom and Mental Distress Scores in Adult Long-term Survivors of Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

Abstract

Childhood cancer survivors are thought to be at risk of psychological difficulties. We examined the prevalence of depressive symptoms and mental well-being in adult long-term survivors of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) at a mean age of 20 years after the cessation of therapy. Depressive symptoms were assessed with Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-21) and mental distress with General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) among 73 ALL survivors and 146 healthy controls. The ALL survivors obtained significantly lower BDI scores (P=0.046) compared with the controls, indicating less depressive symptoms among the ALL survivors. BDI scores indicated a significantly less frequent moderate or severe depression in the ALL survivors compared with the controls (P=0.039). BDI scores indicated no depression in 80.8% of the ALL survivors and 73.3% of the control group. The female ALL survivors obtained lower BDI scores than did the female controls (P=0.005). No difference was found in GHQ-12 scores between the survivors and the controls. Survivors of ALL reported fewer depressive symptoms and equal mental well-being compared with healthy controls. Our findings support the idea that childhood leukemia survivors' subjective experience of well-being is possibly affected by repressive adaptive style.

Late psychiatric morbidity in survivors of cancer at a young age: A nationwide registry‐based study

“…Also, survivors of childhood ALL were significantly more prone to depression than siblings, which is in line with previous reports from the USA . However, in a Finnish brief depression inventory questionnaire study, fewer depressive symptoms were reported in long‐term ALL survivors than in control population . This difference in national findings may be explained by differences in timing of the surveys, and by methodological differences.…”

Research Review: Childhood chronic physical illness and adult emotional health – a systematic review and meta‐analysis

“…A total of 13,094 participants with childhood cancer and 7,079 healthy controls were included across 18 studies (Brown et al., ; Gianinazzi et al., ; Gunn et al., ; Harila, Niinivirta, Winqvist, & Harila‐Saari, ; Kamibeppu et al., ; Kazak et al., ; Kremer et al., ; Mackie, Hill, Kondryn, & McNally, ; Maunsell, Pogany, Barrera, Shaw, & Speechley, ; Michel et al., ; Schwartz & Drotar, ; Seitz et al., ; Servitzoglou et al., ; Stam, Grootenhuis, Caron, & Last, ; Sundberg et al., ; Teta et al., ; Zeltzer et al., , ). On average, cancer survivors were 28.8 years old, and controls were 26.3 years old, as reported in 17 studies.…”

Adverse mental health outcomes in a population‐based cohort of survivors of childhood cancer

“…Because mental illness often has its first onset during adolescence, 4 CCS may be vulnerable to the trauma of their cancer experience and the impact of therapy on their mental health. [15][16][17] Some of the inconsistencies in these observations may be because of the relative advantages and limitations of different methods for assessing mental health outcomes. [11][12][13][14] Several studies have demonstrated superior mental health in CCS compared with controls.…”