Survey of levels of anxiety and depression in parents of children with chronic illness

Survey of levels of anxiety and depression in parents of children with chronic illness hadi jafarmanesh , mahdi ranjbaran, katayon vakilian, koroush rezaee, soleyman zand, Reza tajik , Jafarimanesh@arakmu.ac.ir Abstract: Introduction: Parents who have children with chronic disease are susceptible to anxiety and depression. Parental anxiety and depression is associated with decreased sense of responsibility toward care, education and nutrition for their children and also for their mental disorder effect on their children’s mental and emotional health. The purpose of this study was to determine parent’s anxiety and depression of children with chronic disease in Tehran Mofid pediatric Hospital. Method: The present study is cross-sectional study that was conducted in 2010. 440 parents of hospitalized children with chronic diseases were selected with simple random sampling. Study’s tool was Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. Data were analyzed with descriptive statistics and Independent t-test and Pearson correlation tests. Results: The results showed that 49.1% of parents had moderate to severe and 24.5% had mild anxiety. Also 31.8% of samples were with moderate to severe depression and 27.3% with mild depression. Child gender, location, duration of hospitalization of children showed significant association with the level of anxiety and depression (p<0.05), as well as a significant relationship between parent's gender, history of anxiety and parent's age with depression levels was observed (p<0.05). Conclusion: According to results of this study, it is recommended to screen depression in parents of children with chronic illnesses in hospitals and clinics Keywords: Anxiety, Depression, Parents, Children, Chronic diseases