Abstract
In the decade of the 1980s, pertinent symptoms were seen in children undergoing treatment for cancer consistent with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Criteria of PTSD in DSM-IV included life-threatening medical conditions and chronic medical illness as trauma. Then many researchers also documented posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) among childhood cancer survivors and their parents. Two point six to 47% of childhood cancer cases were reported as PTSS. Parents of the children's cancer survivors were reported with much higher levels of PTSS than patients. There are certain symptoms noted in children, such as flashbacks, bad dreams, repetitive play, avoidance of reminders of the event or numbing of emotions, hyperarousal, hypervigilance and somatic symptoms. Interventions must target the parents as well as the children because the parents are more affected than many of the children. Subjective factors (survivors' perceptions of intensity of treatment, social supports) and manifest anxiety were correlated with PTSS, and those are used as common clinical indications for psychosocial interventions. In a few studies in Japan, 80-83% of survivors of childhood cancer were reported to have symptoms, more than children with cancer in other countries. It is interesting that alexithymic characteristics, peculiar in Japanese, are closely related to PTSS in Japan. Further research in Japan is needed in the prediction and prevention of the long-term distress.
