Abstract
Objective The aim of this study was to find the level of anxiety and depression and its clinical and sociodemographic determinants among the parents of children with cancer on chemotherapy. Materials and Methods Hamilton-A (HAM-A) and Hamilton-D (HAM-D) scales were used to assess anxiety and depression, respectively, in this cross-sectional study. The assessed parents were administered the questionnaire along with collection of sociodemographic and clinical data through a structured data collection proforma between August 2018 and November 2018. Statistical Analysis The sociodemographic factors and the clinical characteristics were analyzed and have been expressed descriptively and associations between the sociodemographic characteristics, clinical characteristics of the children, and the calculated scores obtained from HAM-A and HAM-D scales were analyzed using chi-squared test. A p -value of <0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results Out of 101 parents, 86 (85.14%) were found to have a mild, moderate, or severe depression score. Parents of children with solid tumors undergoing chemotherapy had higher frequency of severe and very severe depression. Majority of the parents (56.4%) assessed with HAM-A scale had mild level of anxiety that was significantly affected by the level of education. Conclusion This study confirmed a very high frequency of depression and anxiety in the parents of children affected with cancer undergoing chemotherapy. Type of cancer (solid or hematological) was found to be a predictor of depression, while education level was found to be a predictor of anxiety in the parents.
Copyright
Association for Helping Neurosurgical Sick People. This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Derivative-Non Commercial License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit.
Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives License, which permits unrestricted reproduction and distribution, for non-commercial purposes only; and use and reproduction, but not distribution, of adapted material for non-commercial purposes only, provided the original work is properly cited.
