Are the Anxiety Levels of Pediatric Hematology-Oncology Patients Different From Healthy Peers During the COVID-19 Outbreak?

Abstract

The COVID-19 outbreak has caused anxiety among children with hematology-oncology disease and their families, as it has in every segment of society. In this study, we aimed to detect the anxiety levels of children with hematologic or oncologic disease and of their parents after the COVID-19 outbreak. The sample consisted of 15 patients 12 to 18 years of age receiving treatment in the Pediatric Hematology and Oncology Unit in Altinbaş University Medical Faculty Bahçelievler Medikalpark Hospital and 33 parents of the same unit patients between 6 and 18 years of age, and their 35 healthy peers and their parents. The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory was applied to participant children and their parents to evaluate their general anxiety and pandemic-related anxiety levels. Children with a hematology-oncology disease and their families were compared with healthy peers and their families. No significant difference was observed for pandemic-related anxiety levels (P>0.05). Both parent groups exhibited higher anxiety levels with regard to the pandemic than did their children (P<0.05). Children with hematology-oncology disease reported significantly higher trait anxiety levels when compared with healthy peers (P=0.01). The families of children who had not received stem cell transplantation had higher state and trait anxiety scores than the families of children who had received the transplantation (P<0.05). Even though they were in the high-risk group, children with a hematology-oncology disease and their families had pandemic-related anxiety levels comparable with those of healthy peers and their families.

Comparison of the Mental Health Impact of COVID-19 on Vulnerable and Non-Vulnerable Groups: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Observational Studies

“…", 13 studies [6,40,42,43,46,47,[49][50][51][56][57][58]60] that used online surveys spread through social media or websites using organizational and personal networks, and presented three or more sociodemographic characteristics or medical history of the participants, were evaluated as Y. Eight studies [38,39,41,44,52,54,55,61] that were conducted at a single institution (a hospital department, a clinical service, etc.) were evaluated as N, while four studies [45,48,53,59] that did not mention the sample frame were evaluated as U.…”

“…All of the included studies were written in English. Among them, 17 studies [38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55] were included in the meta-analysis (Figure 1).…”

“…Of the 25 studies included, 17 [6,39,40,[43][44][45][46][48][49][50][51][53][54][55][56][57][58] were cross-sectional studies, and of the remaining studies, 6 [38,41,42,52,59,60] were case-control studies, and 2 [47,61] were longitudinal studies. Four studies [38,44,54,59] were conducted in Turkey, three in the United States [43,46,61], three in Spain [49][50][51] and Italy [53,55,58], two in Australia [40,48], China [39,56], and Iran [41,45], and one Germany [52], the Netherlands [60], Bangladesh [42], Israel [6], and Argentina ...…”

“…Four studies [38,44,54,59] were conducted in Turkey, three in the United States [43,46,61], three in Spain [49][50][51] and Italy [53,55,58], two in Australia [40,48], China [39,56], and Iran [41,45], and one Germany [52], the Netherlands [60], Bangladesh [42], Israel [6], and Argentina [47], respectively. 22 studies [6,38,[40][41][42][43][44][45][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60] did not report the ethnicity of the participants. Otherwise, except for one study [39] involving only Chinese participants, the rest [46,…”

“…Otherwise, except for one study [39] involving only Chinese participants, the rest [46,61] were multi-ethnic studies. The subtypes of vulnerable populations among included studies were chronic disease patients in eleven studies [39,41,42,44,[52][53][54][57][58][59][60], elderly [6,40,46,49,51] and SMI patients [43,48,50,55,61] in five studies, and pregnant women in four studies [38,45,47,56], respectively. The sample size ranged from 48 to 13,829.…”