Parental Separation and Pediatric Cancer

Grant S et al. – Experiencing cancer in a child does not seem to be a risk factor for separation. The authors study will allow clinicians to reassure parents and to support them in facing the trauma of cancer in their child.

Methods

• In a nationwide cohort, they compared the risk for ending cohabitation of the parents of 2450 children (aged 0–20 years) given a diagnosis of cancer with the risk of parents of 44853 randomly selected, gender- and age-matched cancer-free children.
• Rate ratios and 95% confidence intervals for separation were estimated in a Cox proportional hazards model.

Results

• The parents of children with cancer did not have a higher risk for separation than the general population (rate ratio: 1.00 [95% confidence interval: 0.91–1.10]).
• Separate analyses according to type of cancer and survival of the child similarly yielded null results.

[more...]