Behavioral and Emotional Disturbances in Children with Hemophilia and Children with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL)

Introduction: Children with hemophilia and children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, as chronic illness, experience a significant stress from early childhood and are prone to various psychological problems because of long-term treatment and complications and deprivations.
Methods: This is a causal-comparative study on 50 children with hemophilia and 50 children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia participated from a children hospital (Mofid) in Tehran. All participants were the 12-7 years old. By convenience sampling, the participants were chosen. In this study, Child Behavior Check List (CBCL) was used to assess behavioral and emotional disturbances, which was completed by parents of these children.
Results: The results of this study showed that children with hemophilia in the variables of activities, academic performance and overall competence, and children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in the variables of activities and overall competence scored lower than healthy children. The social performance of these two groups of children did not show any significant difference with healthy children and there was no significant difference in the academic performance of children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia with healthy children. The problems of internalization and extinction, general behavioral and emotional problems of children with hemophilia and children with acute leukemia were more than healthy children. Also, children with Hemophilia showed more behavioral problems than children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
Conclusions: The results indicate that the factors associated with the disease (such as anemia and bleeding), treatment (side effects of drugs) and social exclusion in children with hemophilia and children with acute leukemia caused some psychological problems.