Posttraumatic stress disorder and family functioning in adolescent cancer

Abstract

Twenty three adolescents with a history of cancer, 27 physically abused adolescents, and 23 healthy, nonabused adolescents were administered structured posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) interviews and self-report questionnaires regarding family functioning. Thirty five percent of adolescent cancer subjects met criteria for lifetime PTSD as compared to only 7% of the abused adolescents: 17% of the cancer subjects and 11% of the abuse subjects met criteria for current PTSD. Adolescents with cancer viewed their mothers and fathers as significantly more caring and more protective than the comparison and abused adolescents. Cancer subjects who met criteria for lifetime PTSD saw their families as significantly more chaotic than those who did not have PTSD. Eighty three percent of cancer subjects who had lifetime PTSD also had mothers who had PTSD.

Emotional functioning of parents of children with cancer: the first five years of continuous remission after the end of treatment

“…Inspection of our data, however, did not demonstrate extreme high levels of adaptability and cohesion in the families under study. Previous studies showed inconsistent results on this point [46,[59][60][61][62].…”

Persistent psychological distress in long-term survivors of pediatric sarcoma: the experience at a single institution

“…Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder that can occur after severe life trauma, including life-threatening illness. Field trials and studies that have examined the relationship between cancer survival and PTSD have found that a substantial number of survivors report symptoms consistent with PTSD (Alter et al, 1996;Stuber et al, 1996;Pelcovitz, 1998). Rates of PTSD appear to be lower in pediatric and adolescent cancer survivors (Butler et al, 1996;Erickson and Steiner, 2002;Kazak et al, 2004) than young adult samples, with about 20% of young adult childhood cancer survivors meeting PTSD criteria (Hobbie et al, 2000).…”

A narrative review of the occurrence of posttraumatic stress responses in adolescent and young adult cancer survivors

“…[31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38] The reported ages of participating survivors ranged from 7 years 21 to 71 years. 29 With regard to the heterogeneity of diagnoses, the majority of studies examined survivors of all cancers, with seven studies excluding central nervous system malignancies, 17,19,22,25,31,34,38 and only one focusing on Hodgkin's lymphoma survivors.…”

“…29 With regard to the heterogeneity of diagnoses, the majority of studies examined survivors of all cancers, with seven studies excluding central nervous system malignancies, 17,19,22,25,31,34,38 and only one focusing on Hodgkin's lymphoma survivors. 29 The majority (number [n] =14) of studies examined both PTSS and PTSD outcomes; five assessed PTSD alone 16,18,25,36,37 and four evaluated PTSS alone. 22,27,34,38 Sample sizes ranged from 23-6,542, with ten samples of less than 100, 17,19,[23][24][25][30][31][32]36 eleven samples between 100 and 350, 18,20,22,26,29,[33][34][35]37,38 and two samples exceeding 6,500.…”