Longitudinal Evaluations of Psychological Distress in Parents of Children with Malignancies

ABSTRACT. The authors evaluated the psychological distress in 41 parents of children with acute lymphocytic leukaemia or with Hodgkin's disease using the Symptom Distress Checklist (SCL-90). The subjects were tested three times: within the first few days after the child's admission to hospital and 8 months and 20 months later. The experimental population was compared with a control group of 25 subjects matched for age, sex, marital status and social class. At the first evaluation the experimental group had higher mean scores than the controls for obsession, depression, anxiety and sleep disturbances. Seventy-eight % of the subjects (65.8 % excluding the sleep disturbances (SIDi) subscale) scored moderate distress on at least one of the SCL-90 subscales. The 8 month and 20 month follow-ups confirmed the presence of high scores of psychological distress particularly in the sleep disturbances and depression subscales, with 78 % (58.4 % excluding SIDi) and 82.3 % (70 % excluding SIDi) of the subjects gaining scores of moderate distress in at least one of the subscales of the SCL-90.