Motional and Behavioral Disorders in Pediatric Cancer Patients

 Childhood malignancies raise a range of medical, psychological and social concerns. Identifying psychiatric disorders along with providing mental health services to prevent the emergence and aggravation of mental health problems in children seems necessary in pediatric hospitals. We aimed to find out the frequency of probable emotional and behavioral disorders among children and adolescents with malignancy.Materials & MethodsThis was a cross sectional study conducted at Hematology-Oncology Ward of Mofid Hospital, Tehran, Iran in 2017-2018. Emotional and behavioral disorders was assessed in 399 pediatric patients with malignancy, aged 5 to 12 years, using the Parent Checklist of CSI-4. All data analyses performed using the Stata 14 at 95% sig-value.

In all, 89.2% of sample met diagnostic criteria for at least one disorder. The most prevalent psychiatric disorders were special phobia (57%) enuresis (41.9%) Obsessive-Compulsive disorder (45.6%) and Separation Anxiety disorder (30.3%). Our results did not show significant gender and disease type differences in prevalence of psychiatric disorders.

Prevalence of emotional and behavioral disorders in pediatric patients with malignancy admitted in the children’s hospital is common. These disorders affect on the treatment and quality of life of pediatric patients. Therefore, these findings may guide parents, nurses and clinicians to become more careful about identification and management of them.