Assessment of posttrumatic stress symptoms in parents of children with cancer

Support of parents of children with cancer requires health care personnel to be knowledgeable about the prevalence posttraumatic stress symptoms among parents of children with cancer. This study thus was conducted to fulfill this aim. Using the Impact of event Scale- Revised for parents of children with cancer، 200 parents of these children in two hospitals supervised by Kerman University of Medical Sciences was assessed. The total mean score of posttraumatic stress symptoms was 41. 70. Among all categories of the Impact of Event Scale- Revised، the highest mean belonged to the category of “intrusion” 16. 03 (SD = 6. 24) and the lowest one belonged to the category of “hyperarousal” 10. 68 (SD = 4. 58). Based on the results، mothers had higher posttraumatic stress symptoms compared to fathers (P < 0. 05). Adjusted odd ratio showed that the prevalence of posttraumatic stress symptoms among mothers was 2. 49 times more than that among fathers (P= 0. 01). The results of following study revealed that posttraumatic stress symptoms among mothers of children with cancer in Iran are higher compared to the fathers. There were no association between socio-demographic data and posttraumatic stress symptoms. More study is needed to elucidate the Iranian parents’ experience of having children with cancer.