title: Low depressive symptom and mental distress scores in adult long-term survivors of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
abstract: Childhood cancer survivors are thought to be at risk of psychological difficulties. We examined the prevalence of depressive symptoms and mental well-being in adult long-term survivors of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) at a mean age of 20 years after the cessation of therapy. Depressive symptoms were assessed with Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-21) and mental distress with General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) among 73 ALL survivors and 146 healthy controls. The ALL survivors obtained significantly lower BDI scores (P=0.046) compared with the controls, indicating less depressive symptoms among the ALL survivors. BDI scores indicated a significantly less frequent moderate or severe depression in the ALL survivors compared with the controls (P=0.039). BDI scores indicated no depression in 80.8% of the ALL survivors and 73.3% of the control group. The female ALL survivors obtained lower BDI scores than did the female controls (P=0.005). No difference was found in GHQ-12 scores between the survivors and the controls. Survivors of ALL reported fewer depressive symptoms and equal mental well-being compared with healthy controls. Our findings support the idea that childhood leukemia survivors' subjective experience of well-being is possibly affected by repressive adaptive style.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Rehabilitation, Oulu University Hospital, Oulu, Finland. marika.harila@mail.suomi.net
authors.forename: Marika J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Harila
authors.forename: Tomi I T
authors.initials: TI
authors.lastname: Niinivirta
authors.forename: Satu
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Winqvist
authors.forename: Arja H
authors.initials: AH
authors.lastname: Harila-Saari
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D054198:Precursor Cell Lymphoblastic Leukemia-Lymphoma / Q000401:mortality* / Q000523:psychology; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000453:epidemiology*; D017741:Survivors