Post‐traumatic stress after childhood cancer II: A family model

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Abstract
Recent studies have suggested that parental responses to pediatric cancer can include symptoms of post‐traumatic stress even years after the end of successful treatment. This paper proposes a family model, based on data about the relationship between post‐traumatic stress symptoms in parents of cancer survivors and the child's perceptions, symptoms and treatment. Parents of 30 childhood cancer survivors 8–19 years old, who were at least 22 months off treatment and disease free after a malignancy, were evaluated using self‐report questionnaires. Neither diagnostic category (leukemia versus solid tumor), nor time since completion of treatment significantly correlated with severity of post‐traumatic stress symptoms reported by parents. Although there was a significant correlation between symptom severity of mothers and fathers, neither mothers nor fathers' scores were significantly correlated with the survivors'. Maternal symptoms were significantly correlated with mothers' trait anxiety, survivors' appraisal of treatment intensity, and with duration of treatment. Further study of the interaction of family variables in parental post‐traumatic response to pediatric illness appears to be indicated.