Cancer and its treatment can cause social, intellectual, emotional, developmental, and financial stresses. These stresses not only affect the child receiving the diagnosis, but also the parents in both positive and negative ways. The aim: was to assess Relationship between Psychological parental stress and self esteem of children receiving chemotherapy. Design: A descriptive correlational research design was utilized. Setting: Special Pediatric Hospital in Benha city and Sednawy Hospital in Zagazig city. Sample convenience sample of 100 child receiving chemotherapy and accompanying their parent, hospitalized at in- patient departments of oncology units or attended for one day to receive chemotherapy from the above setting. Tools: Three tools were used Tool: (1) a structured interviewing questionnaire included socio-demographic data of studied children and studied parents. Tool :(2) Parental Stress Index to assess level of parental stress . Tool : (3) Self Esteem Scale to assess self esteem of children. Results: The results of the present study revealed that, majority of parental stress related to child's domains were negatively reinforced, low distracted and were low acceptable, While more than three quarter of studied parents had high parental restriction, low sense of competence and more than two third were highly depressed. The majority of studied children had low level of self esteem. There was a statistically significant difference between onset of the disease of studied children and total parental stress score. There was a highly statistically significant difference between mother's occupation and total parental stress score related to child's domains. There was statistical significant difference between onset of the disease of studied children and total level of self esteem.There were associations between child level of self esteem and two domains of parental stress (child's domains & parent's domains).Conclusion: Majority of studied parents had high level of stress and the majority of studied children had low level of self esteem. There were associations between child's level of self esteem and two domains of parental stress (Child's domains & Parent's domains). Recommendations: According to these results the researcher recommended to, develop and implement psycho educational programs for parents of children with cancer to help them correct any false ideas about cancer and cancer treatment, minimize parental stress, get through difficult situations and enhance child's self esteem. |
