title: Health-Related Behaviour Among Children of Childhood Cancer Survivors in Germany.
abstract: Purpose:Childhood cancer survivors fear that previous therapy could not only impair their own but also their children's health. We examined whether health-related behaviour in children of childhood cancer survivors differs from the general population.Methods:Our first nationwide survey wave (2013-2014) surveyed offspring health in 396 German childhood cancer survivors known to have a child of their own. Answers about health behaviour were analysed using descriptive statistics. Data were collected for 418 offspring and 394 could be integrated for matched-pair analyses with data from the German general population (KIGGS, n=17 641).Results:Teeth-cleaning routine, body-mass-index or subjective body image evaluation by parents were no different from children in the general population. Parents who included a cancer survivor smoked less in the presence of their children (p=0.01). During pregnancy, mothers in cancer survivor parent pairs abstained from drinking alcohol more often (p=0.01) and smoked less (p=0.05). While the calculated effect sizes (Phi) were generally low (0.135-0.247), children from cancer survivors played less outdoors than peers did (p=0.01). Boys participated in sports outside a club more often (p=0.05) and watched less TV on weekdays (p=0.01) and girls spent more time on the computer during weekdays than peers did (p=0.01).Conclusions:This study provides the first data for health-related behaviour in cancer survivors' offspring and sheds light on differences to parenting in the general population. Multivariate analyses in a larger study population are needed to relate these differences to fear issues in cancer survivors.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Oncology, Hematology and Stem Cell Transplantation, Charité-University Medicine Berlin, Germany.|Berlin Institute of Health (BIH), Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Balcerek
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Oncology, Hematology and Stem Cell Transplantation, Charité-University Medicine Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Schuster
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Oncology, Hematology and Stem Cell Transplantation, Charité-University Medicine Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Korte
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Oncology, Hematology and Stem Cell Transplantation, Charité-University Medicine Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Seidel
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Oncology, Hematology and Stem Cell Transplantation, Charité-University Medicine Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Schilling
authors.affiliation: Department for Health Reports, Robert-Koch-Institute, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hölling
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Oncology, Hematology and Stem Cell Transplantation, Charité-University Medicine Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Borgmann-Staudt
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001828:Body Image / Q000523:psychology; D015992:Body Mass Index; D000073116:Cancer Survivors / Q000523:psychology*; D002648:Child; D000067576:Child Health; D016241:Child of Impaired Parents / Q000523:psychology*; D015444:Exercise / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D015438:Health Behavior; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009910:Oral Hygiene / Q000523:psychology; D010379:Peer Group; D011247:Pregnancy; D012016:Reference Values; D016540:Smoking Cessation / Q000523:psychology