Comparison of anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder levels of parents of children who had bone marrow transplant, according to the social support levels

The purpose of this study is to compare the levels of anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder according to the social support levels of the parents of children with bone marrow transplantation. Bone marrow transplantation is an extremely serious health problem that imposes significant financial and moral burdens and responsibilities on families. In addition to the anxiety about the life of their children, parents can be under a heavy psychological burden while doing the necessities of the treatment stages. This can cause them to show symptoms of anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder. The social support that parents will receive during this difficult process is an important factor for their psychological health. In this study, anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder symptom levels of parents were compared according to low and high perceived and received social support conditions. This study was conducted as a descriptive research and the data were collected using the questionnaire method. The sample of the study is the parents residing in Antalya, who have children after bone marrow transplantation and acute treatment. The sample was formed with the voluntary participation of these parents and the fact that they had not been diagnosed with a psychiatric or other chronic disease was determined as the participation criterion and snowball sampling was done. Data collection tools used in the study are: Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, Depression-Anxiety-Stress Scale, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Scale and Social Network Scale. It is believed that this study will contribute to the definition and implementation of a preventive and protective support system in order to enable families to survive the difficult treatment process without adversely affecting their psychological health in vital diseases such as bone marrow transplantation.