Post-traumatic stress symptoms among mothers of children with leukemia undergoing treatment: a longitudinal study.

OBJECTIVE: To assess post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) in mothers of children over 2 years of leukemia treatment, to identify possible early family and child predictors of this symptomatology and to indicate the temporal trajectory of PTSS. METHODS: Participants were 76 Italian mothers (mean age = 37.30 years; SD = 6.07) of children receiving treatment for acute lymphoblastic (n = 69) or myeloid (n = 7) leukemia. Mothers had 12.05 years of education (SD = 3.87), and their incomes were average (52.1%), high (26%) and low (21.9%) for Italian norms, never in poverty. The pediatric patients with leukemia were equally distributed by gender with their mean age of 7.10 years (SD = 4.18). Post-traumatic stress symptoms were measured by a 17-item checklist. Scales assessing anxiety, depression, physical (Brief Symptom Inventory 18) and cognitive functioning (Problem Scale), and life evaluation were also used. There were five assessment points: 1 week (T1), 1 month (T2), 6 months (T3), 12 months (T4) and 24 months post-diagnosis (T5). RESULTS: The main results indicated moderate presence of clinical PTSS (≥9 symptoms: 24% at T2, 18% at T3, 16% at T4 and 19% at T5) that remained stable across time points, whereas Brief Symptom Inventory 18 Global score decreased and life evaluation improved. A series of hierarchical regression models identified cognitive functioning early after the diagnosis as the best predictive factor of PTSS across time points. CONCLUSION: Specific psychological interventions could be devised for mothers at risk for short and long-term PTSS just after the diagnosis.