Withdrawal symptoms are common upon discontinuation of many psychotropic drugs. Catatonia, a neuropsychiatric condition characterized by a number of motor, behavioral, emotional, and autonomic abnormalities, has been described as a withdrawal syndrome in a growing number of case reports, but it is not well recognized. Treatment of catatonia usually includes benzodiazepines and electroconvulsive therapy. Standard consensus states that the use of neuroleptics should be avoided, as they are thought to worsen catatonia.

With this case report, we attempt to contribute to the finding in literature that the withdrawal of clozapine may be associated with catatonia, and how reintroduction of clozapine could be indicated for its treatment.

A clinical case is presented of a 37-year-old female with a history of schizophrenia, presenting with altered mental status and new onset of catatonic signs and symptoms in the setting of a 7-day emetic syndrome. The possibility that vomiting prevented proper absorption of clozapine is postulated, causing the patient to present clinical features compatible with malignant catatonia.

The patient required treatment with benzodiazepines, electroconvulsive therapy and clozapine re-initiation, leading to improvement of catatonic symptoms within a few days.

This case serves as a reminder to consider alternative diagnostic hypotheses in cases of catatonic syndrome unresponsive to standard treatments. When the clinical suspicion of drug withdrawal is high, restarting the discontinued medication, even an antipsychotic agent, may be indicated.

No significant relationships.

Introduction: Residual depressive symptoms are common after a successful acute treatment of late-life depression (LLD), and their presence predicts increased risk of relapse. While electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is the most effective treatment for LLD, little is known about which particular symptoms remain and impact long-term outcome after a successful acute ECT course.

Objectives: We aimed to assess the association between specific residual depressive symptoms after an effective acute ECT course for LLD and relapse at six-month follow-up.

Methods: In this prospective cohort study, including 110 patients aged 55 years and older with LLD, information about relapse was collected six months after the acute ECT course. Relapse was defined as a Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS) score >15, hospital admission or restart of ECT. We used multivariable stepwise logistic regression models including the scores on the 10 individual MADRS items at the end of the acute ECT course to predict relapse.

Results: Of the 80 responders with available six-month follow-up data, 29 patients (36.25%) had suffered relapse. Higher scores on the MADRS items ‘reduced sleep’ (odds ratio (OR)=2.03, 95% confidence interval (CI)=1.11-3.69, p=0.0214) and ‘lassitude’ (OR=1.62, 95% CI=1.00-2.62, p=0.0497) at the end of the acute ECT course were significantly associated with increased risk of relapse at six-month follow-up.

Conclusions: Some residual depressive symptoms, including sleep disturbance and fatigue, may help better identify patients vulnerable to relapse following a successful acute ECT course for LLD. Future studies assessing interventions that target specific residual symptoms may further reduce post-ECT depressive relapse.

No significant relationships.

Qatar established its Forensic Community Mental Health Team (FCMHT) in 2019 as part of the region’s first comprehensive forensic psychiatry service. We present here the data on clinical and offending outcomes since its establishment and compare this with data from before the service was established

To compare clinical and offending outcomes in mental health patients with criminal offending histories in Qatar before and after the establishment of Forensic Community Mental Health Team (FCMHT).

This is a retrospective study comparing the socio-demographical characteristics, clinical outcome and recidivism measures of forensic patients, under the FCMHT for the last two years with data from a similar period before the services were in place.

Data for 170 patients in total was analyzed. 85 patients currently under the active care of forensic community team were matched with a comparable group before the establishment of the services. The re-admission and reoffending rates after the establishment of the service over 1 year of follow up was 15% and 20% respectively compared with 60% and 85% of the group before the service.

Since its inception, the FCMHT has made significant positive impact on quality of life, mental well-being and safety of patients under its care. Close working relationships with criminal justice system, families and carers has helped fight stigma and promote safer community.

No significant relationships.

Use of Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors (MAOIs) has experimented an important reduction in recent years, being replaced by other antidepressant drugs (ADs) associated with a better safety profile. Its use has been restricted to instructed professionals treating resistant and atypical depression. Thus, treatment-emergent affective switch (TEAS) induced by MAOIs is a rare event nowadays.

To describe a manic episode associated to a one-year-long treatment with phenelzine, a MAOI agent.

We present the case of a 47-year-old man hospitalized in our acute psychiatric unit after presenting compatible clinical symptoms with a manic episode. He showed severe irritability, decreased need for sleep, pressured speech, increased energy and goal-directed activities. The patient had started phenelzine a year ago for the treatment of major depressive episode resistant to previous pharmacological essayed treatments. No previous history of TEAS was reported, although he had already taken other ADs and mood-stabilizer treatments in the past.

Several studies reported the effectiveness of MAOIs for the treatment of monopolar depressive episodes resistant to other ADs, especially when atypical symptoms were observed. Data on the use of MAOIs for the treatment of drug-resistant bipolar depressive episodes is scarce. Few studies have described a good response without showing and increased risk of TEAS.

As MAOIs have fallen out of favour with modern psychiatry, there is scarce evidence on the prevalence of TEAS in patients undergoing treatment with these drugs. Further research is needed in order to accurately define these complex relationships.

No significant relationships.

Unemployment is considered to be one of the most stressful life events that a person may experience. There are a plethora of studies that highlighted the negative effects of unemployment on people’s overall mental health and well-being. Yet, psychological resilience and self-compassion contribute positively in coping with stressful situations and seem to be particularly supportive mechanisms when one is confronted with unemployment.

This study intended to investigate the relationships between resilience, self-compassion and mental health in Greek unemployed people and the contribution of specific sociodemographic characteristics in this ‘equation’.

The study followed a survey design where a sample of 345 Greek unemployed participants completed an online questionnaire, examining the variables under study.

According to the findings, people who reported being unemployed for more than six months showed decreased levels of mental health. Also, the unemployed with higher levels of resilience and self-compassion reported statistically significant higher levels of mental health and vice versa. Finally, self-compassion and psychological resilience were found to be statistically positive related to each other and are predictive factors of mental health with which they are statistically negative related.

The results of this study may contribute to the implementation of interventions aiming at improving mental health and the overall well-being of people affected by long-term unemployment.

No significant relationships.

Recent systematic reviews have highlighted that people with Severe Mental Illness (SMI) have higher risks of infection, hospitalisation and death from COVID-19, although the full extent of these disparities are not yet established.

Utilising electronic health records, we investigated COVID-19 related infection, hospitalisation and mortality among people with schizophrenia/psychosis, bipolar disorder (BD) and/or major depressive disorder (MDD) in two large UK samples: the UK Biobank (UKB) cohort study and GP-registered patients in Greater Manchester (GM).

We sampled 447,296 adults with and without SMI from UKB (inc. schizophrenia/psychosis=1,925, BD=1,483 and MDD=41,448, non-SMI=402,440) and 1,152,831 adults from GM (inc. schizophrenia/psychosis =46,859, BD=3,461, recurrent MDD=134,661, non-SMI = 922,264). Primary care, hospital and death records were linked to identify COVID-19 related outcomes. Logistic regression models were used to estimate unadjusted and adjusted Odds Ratios (ORs) to compare differences in COVID-19 outcomes by diagnosis, controlling for sociodemographic factors and comorbidities.

We will report the findings of unadjusted and adjusted analyses, comparing ORs for people with and without SMI, by diagnosis. Findings will be compared between the two datasets, with attention to the demographic and clinical profiles of each sample. We will consider the role of demographic characteristics and comorbidities in attenuating outcomes.

Emerging evidence suggests that people with SMI have higher risks of COVID-19 infection, hospitalisation and mortality. Based on two large datasets utilising EHRs, we present findings from the UK on COVID-19 outcomes among people with SMI, a country that has been severely affected by COVID-19.

No significant relationships.

Sexual orientation is known to have some influence in alcohol consumption patterns and outcomes. Sexual minority women (SMW) are more likely to develop binge drinking and alcohol use disorder than heterossexual women. Because women tend to be more secretive with their drinking and hesitant to get help, and alcohol is particularly harmful to the female body, SMW pose particular challenges.

Review the latest research on alcoholism in SMW, focusing on various specificities of this population.

Literature review in the PubMed database, using the MESH terms “alcohol use disorder”, “women”, “female”, “trans woman”, “adult”. Free full text, publication in the last 5 years, English or Portuguese and article typology filters were applied. Following primary hits, secondary references were checked and a total of 10 articles were included. Results were grouped in epidemiological, etiological, therapeutical and prognostic specificities.

Data indicate that lesbian and bisexual women, compared to heterosexuals, are twice as likely to engage in binge drinking. AUD prevalence and patterns of alcohol use are especially higher among younger SMW. The influence of sexual orientation on alcohol use and related outcomes seems to be greater among women than men. Regarding etiology, internalized stigma, minority stress, victimization experiences, social norms and policies are the main culprits Even though SMW are more likely to report and ask hor help, many do not receive adequate treatment. SMW show an incresed risk of developing other complications, such as physical injuries, sexual assault, liver or cardiac disease.

Sexual minority women are particularly vulnerable to alcohol-related harms. Interventions especially directed to SMW need to be developed.

No significant relationships.

Few studies have investigated the level of planning of pregnancy among women with mental disorder and associated risk factors.

The purpose of this study was to determine the associated factors to UP and psychopathological consequences.

A cross sectional study was conducted at the Perinatal Mental Health Unit of the Hospital Clínic in Barcelona. The total sample comprised 675 consecutive pregnant women with diagnosis of mental disorder (DSM-IV criteria), seen between January 2006 and December 2018. Clinical, psychometric and socio-demographic variables were collected at the first visit. Pregnancy planning was assessed by a question “Was this pregnancy planned?” with three possible answers: 1) Yes, it was planned and has been well received; 2) No, it was not planned but it has been well received; and 3) No, it was an accident. Response 1 was coded as “planned pregnancy” and responses 2 and 3 as “Unplanned Pregnancy”.

38.4% of the sample had an UP. Younger age, lower levels of education, Latin-American population, multiparity, financials problems and poor relationship with the partner were associated with UP in women with mental disorder. The mean EPDS and STAI scores and the presence of self-harming thoughts were significantly higher in women with UP.

UP was associated with more depressive and anxious symptoms and more self-harming thoughts. It is necessary to promote reproductive health care for women with mental disorders and to take into account their reproductive life plan, especially in those with risk factors described.

No significant relationships.

International experience convincingly shows the prevalence of mental disorders secondary to COVID-19, the pathogenesis of which includes biological and psychosocial factors, which characterizes this area of research as relevant and timely.

Analysis of the structure of the most common forms of psychopathology within consequences in COVID-19.

The study involved 45 patients with depressive episodes of varying severity (F 32.0, 32.1, 32.2) and 37 ones with anxiety disorders (F 40, 41). The average age of the examined groups was 39.42 ± 5.68 and 31.54 ± 4.36 years respectively. Clinico-psychopathological, psychodiagnostic, statistical methods were used.

Significantly more patients with depressive disorders before the first clinical manifestations of the disease experienced COVID-19 in mild and moderate form (31.82% and 68.18% of individuals, respectively) (p <0.05), while patients with anxiety disorders were more affected to some stressors of the SARS-COV-2 pandemic (including threatening information background (83.78% of people), quarantine measures in the form of self-isolation (75.66% of people), uncertainty of the impact of coronavirus infection on the socio-economic situation) (62.16% of people)) (p < 0.05). It was found that the examined patients with a history of coronavirus COVID-19 are more likely to have depressive and asthenic syndromes in the clinical picture (p < 0.05), while patients with psychogenic effects of the pandemic - anxiety-phobic and somato-autonomic syndromes (p < 0,05).

Data on the influence of coronavirus disease COVID-19 and stressors of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic on the formation of mental disorders of various genesis will allow to develop prevention algorithms and personalize therapeutic programs.

No significant relationships.

Attention Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a highly prevalent neurodevelopmental condition characterized by inattention, motor hyperactivity and impulsivity. ADHD cognitive and behavioral presentation is characterized by a high heterogeneity (APA, 2013). Indeed, a complex diagnostic process, that considers several validated tools, is, to date, necessary.

The main aim is to develop supervised machine learning (ML) algorithms that could be used to support the diagnostic process for ADHD, by identifying the most relevant features in discriminating between the presence or absence of the ADHD diagnosis in children.

We analyzed data from 342 children (Mean age: 8y 8m ± 1y; 61 F) referred for possible ADHD symptomatology. Assessments were performed by an expert clinician and through questionnaires: Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS), Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL), Conners Rating Scale for Parents (CPRS) and for Teachers (CTRS). Data were analyzed using a decision tree classifier and random forest algorithms.

The decision tree model performed an accuracy of 0.71. The random forest model that was identified as the best tested, performed an accuracy of 0.77 (Figure 1) and it identified as most informative parent- and teacher-rated DSM-oriented ADHD symptoms (Figure 2).

Figure 1: Random forest confusion matrix and statistics.

Figure 2: Ranking of variables importance.

A random forest classifier could represent an effective algorithm to support the identification of ADHD children and to simplify the diagnostic process as an initial step. The use of supervised machine learning algorithms could be useful in helping the diagnostic process, highlighting the importance of a personalized medicine approach.

No significant relationships.

Schizophrenia (SZ) and bipolar disorder (BD) are severe mental illnesses with large overlapping heritability. Both disorders are associated with altered neurophysiological responses, as measured with magnetoencephalography (MEG) or electroencephalography (EEG), particularly reduced mismatch negativity (MMN) and 40 Hz auditory steady-state responses (ASSR). These deficits could potentially both serve as early markers of illness and provide insight into the underlying pathophysiology as endophenotypes. First-degree relatives to patients with SZ and BD also show some neurophysiological deficits, however whether these deficits can be detected in adolescent offspring of patients is undetermined.

We aim to investigate whether adolescents at familial high risk of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder show aberrant MMN and ASSR compared to population-based controls.

We will investigate MMN and 40 Hz ASSR in 15 year old adolescents (n ≈ 175) born to parents diagnosed with either SZ (FHR-SZ), BD (FHR-BD), or neither SZ or BD (population-based controls, PBC) using MEG. We will first perform sensor-level analyses and subsequently apply dynamic causal modeling (DCM) to investigate effective connectivity and make inferences about the underlying neurobiological mechanisms. We will investigate whether current psychopathology, cognitive status, and genetic risk for SZ and BD predict neurophysiological responses in the adolescents. Investigations are part of The Danish High Risk and Resilience Study - VIA (VIA15), a population-based longitudinal cohort study integrating social, psychological and biological risk factors and outcomes for SZ and BD.

Final results are expected in 2024

The VIA15 study will allow for unprecedented insight into the neurobiological development of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

No significant relationships.

Psychological factors, like general self-efficacy, optimism or subjective well-being, might further enhance the understanding of why certain people vaccinate while others do not.

To identify psychological factors associated with people’s decision to vaccinate during pandemic events.

A literature review has been made through PubMed database.

Psychology offers three general propositions for understanding and intervening to increase uptake where vaccines are available and affordable. The first proposition is that thoughts and feelings can motivate getting vaccinated. Low confidence in vaccine effectiveness and concern about safety correlate reliably with not getting vaccinated. The second proposition is that social processes can motivate getting vaccinated. Social norms are associated with vaccination. Recommendation by friends, mainstream media and social media affected vaccination intention. The third proposition is that interventions can facilitate vaccination directly by leveraging, but not trying to change, what people think and feel. To increase vaccine uptake, these interventions build on existing favorable intentions by facilitating action (through reminders, prompts, and primes) and reducing barriers (through logistics and healthy defaults); these interventions also shape behavior (through incentives, sanctions, and requirements). Perceived risk and effectiveness of the vaccine as well as trust in the government and health authorities was related to people’s vaccination intention.

There are significant associations of general individual psychological constructs with the decision to vaccinate. This may provide useful frameworks for understanding the causal mechanisms behind this relationship, which could help to develop intervention strategies to effectively promote vaccination intentions that increase vaccination rates among population.

No significant relationships.

ADHD patients often report that they are being flooded by sensory impressions. Studies investigating sensory processing show hypersensitivity for sensory inputs across the senses. While studying unimodal signal-processing is relevant and well-suited in a controlled laboratory environment, our daily interaction with our environment does not occur merely unimodal. A complex interplay of the senses is necessary to form a unified percept. In order to achieve this, the unimodal sensory modalities are bound together in a process called multisensory integration (MI).

In the current study we investigate MI in an adult ADHD sample accompanied by resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (RS-fMRI).

Twenty-five ADHD patients and twenty-four healthy controls were recruited. MI was examined using the McGurk effect, where - in case of successful MI - incongruent speech-like phonemes between visual and auditory modality are leading to a perception of a new phoneme. Mann-Whitney-U test was applied to assess statistical differences between groups. Resting-state functional MRI was acquired to realize a seed-to-voxel analysis

Susceptibility to MCGurk was significantly lowered for ADHD patients (ADHDMdn:5.83%, ControlsMdn:44.2%, U= 160.5, p=0.022, r=-0.34). When ADHD patients integrated phonemes, reaction times were significantly longer (ADHDMdn:1260ms, ControlsMdn:582ms, U=41.0, p<.000, r= -0.56). Seeded medio temporal gyrus was negatively associated in functional connectivity to primary auditory cortex, inferior frontal gyrus, precentral gyrus, and fusiform gyrus.

MI seems to be deficient for ADHD patients for stimuli that need late attentional allocation. This finding is supported for higher functional connectivity from unimodal sensory areas to polymodal, MI convergence zones for complex stimuli.

No significant relationships.

Lithium is commonly administered to patients in an outpatient department (OPD) setting. Regular monitoring of lithium levels and renal function in accordance with published guidelines is required. In our unit, this is usually performed at OPD review. During the COVID-19 pandemic, reviews were either postponed or done remotely.

1. To devise a system to ensure that patients receiving lithium had appropriate blood test monitoring in the absence of traditional OPD appointments. 2. To assess the efficacy of this intervention by recording blood test dates and comparing with pre-COVID compliance.

All outpatients receiving lithium, identified from the hospital database, received (1) a letter summarising the monitoring guidelines and (2) prospectively dated blood request forms. Patients at higher risk of contracting COVID-19 were advised to attend their primary care setting. Others were encouraged to attend primary care or our phlebotomy department. Compliance was measured by accessing the hospital’s laboratory enquiry computer based system and compared with pre-COVID-19 figures. Information was anonymised, as per General Data Protection Regulations.

57 patients receiving lithium were identified. Prior to the first Irish lockdown in March 2020, 16 (28%) were overdue testing. Three months into the pandemic, 15 patients (26%) were overdue testing.

In the absence of routine outpatient appointments during the COVID-19 pandemic, the provision of written guidelines and completed blood request forms for patients receiving lithium was effective in ensuring monitoring of lithium levels and renal function. This system can be utilised as an alternative/adjunct to OPD review benefitting patients and health service delivery.

No significant relationships.

Aging raises wide-ranging issues within social, economic, welfare, and health care systems. Life satisfaction is regarded as an indicator of the quality of life which, in turn, is associated with mortality and morbidity in older adults.

Life Satisfaction is a dimension of happiness and well-being which represents the quality of life in both literacy and every aspect of a person. The purpose of the article is to assess the level of life satisfaction and the factors associated with life satisfaction in old age.

This research was conducted in a cross-sectional study using 36 items from Satisfaction and Well-being of Elderly (Thai semi-structured in-depth interviews) tools to collect data. The population used in this study was Thai people over 60 and used multistage probability sampling, were held with 2000 elderly individuals from 13 health regions of Thailand.

Of the 2000 samples, the overall life satisfaction was moderate (54.1%). Upon data analysis, ten categories were extracted. However, there are 7 factors that significantly influence the level of life satisfaction of the Thai elderly at p < 0.05: Age, Occupation, Recreational activities, Revenue, Education level, Religious activities, and Social Support. Moreover, when tested with Pearson Correlation found that the relationship between and Thai brief screening for depression (2Q) was low correlated (r -0.121, P=0.000).

Aging should be foreseen and forethought to increase life satisfaction. The following can be effective in increasing life satisfaction in the elderly: Placing greater emphasis on spiritualism in life, employment of the elderly, and promoting positive leisure in the elderly.

No significant relationships.

EHRs contain a rich source of real-world data that can support evidence generation to better understand mental disorders and improve treatment outcomes. However, EHR datasets are complex and include unstructured free text data that are time consuming to manually review and analyse. We present NeuroBlu, a secure, cloud-based analytic tool that includes bespoke NLP software to enable users to analyse large volumes of EHR data to generate real-world evidence in mental healthcare.

(i) To assemble a large mental health EHR dataset in a secure, cloud-based environment.

(ii) To apply NLP software to extract data on clinical features as part of the Mental State Examination (MSE).

(iii) To analyse the distribution of NLP-derived MSE features by psychiatric diagnosis.

EHR data from 25 U.S. mental healthcare providers were de-identified and transformed into a common data model. NLP models were developed to extract 241 MSE features using a deep learning, long short-term memory (LSTM) approach. The NeuroBlu tool (https://www.neuroblu.ai/) was used to analyse the associations of MSE features in 543,849 patients.

The figure below illustrates the percentage of patients in each diagnostic category with at least one recorded MSE feature.

Delusions and hallucinations were more likely to be recorded in people with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder, and cognitive features were more likely to be recorded in people with dementia. However, mood symptoms were frequently recorded across all diagnoses illustrating their importance as a transdiagnostic clinical feature. NLP-derived clinical information could enhance the potential of EHR data to generate real-world evidence in mental healthcare.

This study was funded in full by Holmusk.

No significant relationships.

Long-acting injectable antipsychotics (LAIs) have emerged as a new therapeutic option to treat patients suffering a psychotic disorder. To date, there is a lack of studies regarding safety and clinical use pattern of LAIs in pregnant women.

Provide evidence and real world clinical data of pregnant women with schizophrenia who have been treated with long-acting aripiprazole monohydrate (aripiprazole once monthly [AOM] condition) during their pregnancy.

Descriptive real-world clinical experiences of pregnant women in treatment with AOM. The information was obtained by reviewing electronic medical records and by direct clinical observation management.

The first six case-series describing the pregnancy course of women with schizophrenia treated with AOM. All of them remained psychopathologically stable through pregnancy, and their infants became healthy with normal developmental milestones (Table 1).

Table 1.

Clinical characteristics of six case-reports.

The favorable results in this case-series suggest that despite the lack of evidence on reproductive safety and treatment with AOM during pregnancy, this therapeutic option should be considered in pregnant women with schizophrenia. However, further research on the use of long-acting antipsychotics in pregnant women is needed.

No significant relationships.

23% of people experiencing a first episode of psychosis (FEP) develop treatment resistant schizophrenia (TRS). At present, there are no established methods to accurately identify who will develop TRS from baseline.

In this study we used patient data from three UK early intervention services (EIS) to investigate the predictive potential of routinely recorded sociodemographic, lifestyle and biological data at FEP baseline for the risk of TRS up to six years later.

We developed two risk prediction algorithms to predict the risk of TRS at 2-8 years from FEP onset using commonly recorded information at baseline. Using the forced-entry method, we created a model including age, sex, ethnicity, triglycerides, alkaline phosphatase levels and lymphocyte counts. We also produced a machine-learning-based model, including an additional four variables. The models were developed using data from two and externally validated in another UK psychosis EIS.

The development samples included 785 patients, and 1,110 were included in the validation sample. The models discriminated TRS well at internal validation (forced-entry: C 0.70, 95%CI 0.63-0.76; LASSO: C 0.69, 95%CI 0.63-0.77). At external validation, discrimination performance attenuated (forced-entry: C 0.63, 0.58-0.69; LASSO: C 0.64, 0.58-0.69) but recovered for the forced entry model after recalibration and revision of the lymphocyte predictor (C: 0.67, 0.62-0.73).

The use of commonly recorded clinical information including biomarkers taken at FEP onset could help to predict TRS. These measures should be considered in future studies modelling psychiatric outcomes.

No significant relationships.

The diagnosis of pediatric cancer is a traumatic event that is considered to be one of the most adverse situations the child and his family can experience. The psychological impact of this diagnosis on the parents has triggered a great scientific attention in these recent years.

Estimate the prevalence of depression and post-traumatic stress among parents of children with cancer.

Our study was cross-sectional over a period of 1 month in the medical carcinology department at the Salah Azaeiz Institute. We used the Beck Depression Scale II and the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Cheklist-Civilian assessements.

Thirty parents participated in our study. Most of whom were mothers (73%). The educational level was primary in 63% of cases and socio-economic level was average in 60% of parents. 40% of parents were assessed within six months after diagnosis. Prevalence of depressive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder were 73% and 57% respectively. The low educational level was correlated to the presence of these two disorders. Similarly, the low educational level was correlated to the presence of depressive disorders (p=0.008). The number of children in the family was also associated to the presence of post-traumatic stress disorder (p=0.029).

The prevalence of depressive and post-traumatic stress disorders was high among parents of children diagnosed with cancer. The low socio-economic and educational level and the large number of children in the family are risk factors for psychological distress. Psychosocial support should be offered to parents of children with cancer to optimize the management of this disease.

No significant relationships.