Psychology of Parents with Children with Cancer in the Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Background: Children with cancer pose a major challenge for parents during the Covid -19 pandemic because cancer is an immunocompromised disease that is at high risk of infection. Concerns about coronavirus exposure and treatment changes are psychological stress for parents. Parental sociodemography such as gender, age, education, occupation, number of children and marital status plays role in the psychological condition of parents. Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine the psychological status of parents in children with cancer during the Covid-19 pandemic Methods: This research uses cross-sectional research design. 46 sample respondents were taken with snowball sampling technique. Data analysis uses KendallTau to determine the effect between variables Results: There was a relationship between marital status with parental anxiety (p=0.000), parental stress level (p=0.000), and parental depression (p=0.000) of parents who have children with cancer during the COVID-19 pandemic. There was no relationship between gender (p=0.523), age (p=0.740), education (p=0.865), occupation (p=0.093) and the number of children (p=0.423) with parents anxiety levels. There was no relationship between gender (p=0.109), age (p=0.212),education (p=0.451), occupation (p=0.147) and number children (p=0.157) with parents stress levels. There was no relationship between gender (p=0.523), age (p=0.740), education (p=0.866), occupation (p=0.111) and number children (p=0.423) with depression rates of parents who have children with cancer during the COVID-19 pandemic. Conclusion: There was relationship between marital status with anxiety levels of parents, parental stress levels and parental depression in children with cancer during the Covid-19 pandemic.