A comparative study of psychological problems of children suffering from cancer, epilepsy and asthma

This study examines the psychological problems of chronically ill Malaysian children. The sample consisted of 63 parents of children suffering from cancer, epilepsy and asthma. The Child behavior checklist (CBCL; Achenbach, 1991) for ages 4-18 with its subscales of internalizing, externalizing, thought, attention and social problems was used to assess the behavioral problems of the children as perceived by their parents. The data were collected from the pediatric outpatients and wards of Kuala Lumpur General Hospital. The data were analyzed for differences between children suffering from cancer, epilepsy and asthma on the CBCL and its subscales using oneway analyses of variance. A priori comparisons were computed between one illness and a combination of other two illnesses to substantiate the findings of ANOVAs. The findings supported our hypothesis that children suffering from cancer, epilepsy and asthma differed in the degree of their psychological problems. The results demonstrated that children suffering from cancer had more internalizing problems as compared to the children suffering from epilepsy and asthma. The results also indicated the presence of more thought, attention and social problems in the case of epileptic children compared to cancer and asthmatic children. Contrary to our hypothesis, the cancer children showed more externalizing problems than the asthmatic children.