Emotional and Behavioural Disorders in Children and Adolescents with Neoplasm

Abstract

Background: Chronic physical illness including neoplasm has significant adverse impact on quality of life of the effected children and adolescents and their caregivers. This aspect has yet not been explored in Bangladesh and there exists significant lack of awareness.
Objectives: To delineate the frequency of emotional and behavioural disorders among children and adolescents with neoplasm and to find out the relationship of socio-demographic and relevant variables with psychiatric disorders of them.
Methods: This was a cross sectional study conducted at Department of Psychiatry, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, Dhaka. Sixty children and adolescent with neoplasm admitted in paediatric unit of same institution who were referred to psychiatric department for assessment. They were assessed for emotional and behavioural disorders by using validated Bangla translation of a standardized child psychiatric assessment tool, the Development and Well-Being Assessment.
Results: Out of 60 cases, 53% had been suffering from any ICD-10 psychiatric disorders (87.5% emotional and 34.7% behavioural disorders).Seventy five percent of children with ALL, 18% with Hodgkin Lymphoma followed by 7% with Wilms’ tumour suffered from psychiatric disorders. Emotional and behavioural disorder was found more in ALL cases. Though emotional disorder was found higher among girls,the difference was not significant. Conversely, behavioural disorders were found among the boys which was highly significant (p<0.005). In terms of education, both emotional and behavioural disorders were significantly found in higher grade.
Conclusion: The identification and management of the emotional and behavioural disorders that accompany chronic physical illness including neoplasm would optimize treatment outcome and quality of life.

Key words: Emotional & behavioural disorders; children & adolescents; neoplasm.  

DOI: 10.3329/bsmmuj.v3i2.7058

BSMMU J 2010; 3(2): 86-90