Parental type of personality, negative affectivity and family stressful events in children with cancer.

Objective: Psychological interactions between parents,children and social environment are very important for childhood health. The type of personality and stressful events are probably also cancer risk factors. We investigated personality types A/B and D (negative affectivity and social inhibition) in parents of children with cancer (PCC), as well as social environmental factors, and family / children's stressful events before the appearance of cancer.

Subjects And Methods: Bortner Type A Scale for evaluating parental type A/B personality, and 14 question personality test (DS14) for parental type D personality (negative affectivity and social inhibition score) were performed. Questionnaire eligible information about stressful events and social environmental factors in children with cancer (CC) were analyzed.

Results: Analyzing 127 PCC and 136 parents of healthy children (PHC) we found no significant differences in A/B type personality and social inhibition. There was significant difference in negative affectivity. PCC had more negative affectivity than PHC. We found more stressful events before cancer appearance in the families of children with cancer (FCC) than in healthy families (FHC), and more children's stressful events in CC then in healthy ones (HC). There were more quarrels in FCC, while CC were more "easy good-mannered children" than HC.

Conclusions: Our results support the hypothesis that stress is a cancer risk factor and the idea that impaired parental functioning may be a mechanism linking family stress with the aetiology of cancer.