Childhood injury after a parental cancer diagnosis

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Abstract

A parental cancer diagnosis is psychologically straining for the whole family. We investigated whether a parental cancer diagnosis is associated with a higher-than-expected risk of injury among children by using a Swedish nationwide register-based cohort study. Compared to children without parental cancer, children with parental cancer had a higher rate of hospital contact for injury during the first year after parental cancer diagnosis (hazard ratio [HR]=1.27, 95% confidence interval [CI]=1.22-1.33), especially when the parent had a comorbid psychiatric disorder after cancer diagnosis (HR=1.41, 95% CI=1.08-1.85). The rate increment declined during the second and third year after parental cancer diagnosis (HR=1.10, 95% CI=1.07-1.14) and became null afterwards (HR=1.01, 95% CI=0.99-1.03). Children with parental cancer also had a higher rate of repeated injuries than the other children (HR=1.13, 95% CI= 1.12-1.15). Given the high rate of injury among children in the general population, our findings may have important public health implications.

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Ruoqing Chen

Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden

For correspondence
ruoqing.chen@ki.se

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Amanda Regodón Wallin

Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Arvid Sjölander

Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Unnur Valdimarsdóttir

Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Weimin Ye

Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden

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The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Henning Tiemeier

Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus University Medical Center, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, Netherlands

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The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Katja Fall

Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics Unit, School of Health and Medical Sciences, Örebro University Hospital, Örebro University, Örebro, Sweden

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The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Catarina Almqvist

Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden

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The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Kamila Czene

Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Fang Fang

Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

Ethics

Human subjects: The study was approved by the Central Ethical Review Board (Centrala etikpr�vningsn�mnden) in Stockholm, Sweden (Reg No. 2013/244-31/4). In accordance with their decision, we did not obtain informed consent from participants involved in the study. All individuals' information was anonymized and de-identified prior to analysis.

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This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.