POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS AFTER CHILDHOOD-CANCER .2. A FAMILY MODEL

Recent studies have suggested that parental responses to pediatric can cer can include symptoms of post-traumatic stress even years after the end of successful treatment. This paper proposes a family model, base d on data about the relationship between post-traumatic stress symptom s in parents of cancer survivors and the child's perceptions, symptoms and treatment. Parents of 30 childhood cancer survivors 8-19 years ol d, who were at least 22 months off treatment and disease free after a malignancy, were evaluated using self-report questionnaires. Neither d iagnostic category (leukemia versus solid tumor), nor time since compl etion of treatment significantly correlated with severity of post-trau matic stress symptoms reported by parents. Although there was a signif icant correlation between symptom severity of mothers and fathers, nei ther mothers nor fathers' scores were significantly correlated with th e survivors'. Maternal symptoms were significantly correlated with mot hers' trait anxiety, survivors' appraisal of treatment intensity, and with duration of treatment. Further study of the interaction of family variables in parental post-traumatic response to pediatric illness ap pears to be indicated.