The prevalence of children affected by parental cancer and their use of specialised psychiatric services: The 1987 finnish birth cohort study
Cette étude de cohorte finlandaise analyse la détresse émotionnelle de 60 069 enfants nés en 1987 dont les parents sont atteints de cancer et la prévalence des recours à des services psychiatriques adaptés
The studies reporting population-based estimates of the proportion of children with a parent suffering from cancer are very few. These children have been shown to suffer from psychological symptoms, but it is not known whether their use of psychiatric services is increased. This study examined the prevalence of children affected by parental cancer at national level and whether these children use specialised psychiatric services more than their peers. The study is a retrospective population-based registry study. All 60,069 children born in Finland in 1987 were followed up with various health and social registers from 1987 to 2008. The associations of parental cancer treatments with children's psychiatric service use were analysed with logistic regressions. During the 21-year follow-up 3,909 (6.6%) of the children had a parent suffering from cancer. The children of the cancer patients used more specialised psychiatric care than their peers and the service use depended on parent's gender, as well as cohort members' gender and the age at occurrence. The combination of parental cancer and psychiatric disorder, whether the ill parent or spouse, increased the children's psychiatric service use even more. Children affected by parental cancer comprise a substantial part of the population in society using increased level of psychiatric services. Parental cancer is clearly an illness which has to be taken into account in planning child- and parentingfocused prevention and promotion actions in adult health care. © 2012 Wiley-Liss, Inc.