Long-Term Pattern of Psychotropic Medication Uses Among Swedish Parents of Children Diagnosed With Cancer.

Background: Parents experience a range of mental health disorders following their child's cancer diagnosis. It is thus essential to explore how the child's cancer diagnosis affects the dosage of psychotropic medication in both short- and long-term use, as well as potential disparities in utilization patterns between mothers and fathers.

Patients and methods: Using Swedish registers, we identified all parents whose children were diagnosed with cancer from July 2009 to December 2015 in Sweden. We randomly matched up to 5 parents of cancer-free children conditional on their baseline characteristics. All parents were followed up from 4 years before to 4 years after their child's diagnosis. Psychotropic medication cumulative defined daily doses (DDDs) were retrieved from the Swedish Prescribed Drug Register. Using interrupted time series analyses, we sought to investigate how childhood cancer diagnosis influences the evolving pattern of parental psychotropic medication dosage across time with consideration for potential differences compared with matched parents before the child's cancer diagnosis. We calculated the attributable proportion due to the diagnosis of childhood cancer.

Results: Following a child's cancer diagnosis, mothers experienced a steady increase in psychotropic medication use, averaging 4.9 DDDs per year compared with matched comparisons, with a 46.0% adjusted attributable proportion in the initial year. Fathers had an abrupt increase in psychotropic medication use in the first year after diagnosis, with an adjusted attributable proportion of 72.1%. Parents with lower education attainment tended to use more psychotropic medication.

Conclusions: In response to a child's cancer diagnosis, parents showed increased use of psychotropic medication compared with matched comparisons. Additionally, utilization patterns differed between mothers and fathers. Timely prevention and early support for parents are needed to alleviate their psychological challenges, potentially mitigating the strain on medical resources associated with increased psychotropic medication use.