Citation

Chen R, Regodón Wallin A, Sjölander A, Valdimarsdóttir U, Ye W, Tiemeier H, Fall K, Almqvist C, Czene K, Fang F. Elife 2015; 4(ePub): ePub.

Affiliation

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

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, dLife Sciences Plublications, Ltd)

DOI

10.7554/eLife.08500

PMID

26519735

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.

Language: en