When young people survive cancer, their mental-health struggles are often just beginning
"It's not just grief over a shortened life, because a lot of people survive — but grief over how their life would have looked like."
Thanks to advances in treatments, children’s chances of surviving cancer are higher than ever before. But the trauma that patients experience as they deal with the disease can pose a lifelong risk to their mental health, according to a recent analysis published in JAMA Pediatrics.
The meta-analysis of 52 clinical studies measured the prevalence and severity of psychological disorders in over 20,000 young cancer survivors. Overall, childhood, adolescent, and young adult cancer survivors were 57% more likely to develop depression, 29% more likely to develop anxiety, and 56% more likely to develop psychotic disorders in the years following treatment compared to their siblings or healthy members of a control group.
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