Comparison of child self-report and parent proxy-report of symptoms: Results from a longitudinal symptom assessment study of children with advanced cancer.

Purpose: This report represents a subanalysis of data from a primary study and addresses a gap in understanding the similarities and differences of symptom reporting between children with advanced cancer and their parents. The objectives of this subanalysis were to (1) compare reports of symptom prevalence, symptom burden, and symptom frequency, severity, and distress between groups of children and adolescents and their parents, and (2) describe concordance of symptom reports within individual child-parent dyads.

Design And Methods: Forty-six children with relapsed, refractory, or progressive cancer and their parents from five pediatric cancer centers prospectively reported symptoms every 2 weeks for up to 61 weeks.