Psychosocial screening using Pediatric Symptom Checklist in patients with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

@#<p style="text-align: center;"> </p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>BACKGROUND: </strong>Leukemia is the most common malignant neoplasm in childhood, with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) comprising 71% of cases. Partients undergo intensive course of treatment and complications, making them at risk for psychosocial difficulties. The Pediatric Symptom Checklist (PSC) is a validated psychosocial screening tool for the identification of emotional, cognitive, and behavioral problems in children. It uses subscales to identify impairments in attention, internalizing, and externalizing behaviors.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>OBJECTIVE</strong><strong>: </strong>To screen the psychosocial status of pediatric patients with ALL using the PSC. It aimed to correlate a positive PSC score with factors such age, gender, and on-going chemotherapy.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>METHODS: </strong>The study design is cross-sectional. Participants were asked to answer the PSC which is a 35-item questionnaire. Total scores were calculated and interpreted based on set cut-off scores.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>RESULTS: </strong>A total of 87 patients with ALL were included in the study. The PSC was able to identify 16 patients (18%) with psychosocial problems. The patients had concerns related to the internalizing subscale, followed by attention and externalizing subscales. There was no association between age, sex, duration of diagnosis, and on-going chemotherapy with the presence of psychosocial issues in patients with ALL.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>CONCLUSIONS:</strong> In this study, the prevalence of psychosocial issues in patients with ALL is 16%. Screening patients using the PSC can help in the early detection of psychosocial issues among children with ALL. </p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>RECOMMENDATIONS: </strong>A separate study which focuses on both patients and families' psychosocial status is recommended to get an overall picture of the effect of cancer and its treatment. Screening in several points during the course chemotherapy can also be done in future studies.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong> </strong></p>

The Korean Version of the Pediatric Symptom Checklist: Psychometric Properties in Korean School-aged Children

Psychosocial problems increase the risk for mental health problems and increase the need for health care services in children and adolescents. Primary care practice is a valuable avenue for identifying the need for more specialized mental health care. We hypothesized that Korean version of the pediatric symptom checklist (PSC) would be a useful tool for early detection of psychosocial problems in children and adolescents in Korea and we aimed to suggest cut-off scores for detecting meaningful psychosocial problems. A total of 397 children with their parents and 97 child patients with their parents were asked to complete the PSC Korean version and the child behavior checklist (CBCL). The internal reliability and test-retest reliability of the PSC as well as the cut-off score of the PSC was determined via receiver operating characteristic analysis of the CBCL score, clinical group scores and non-clinical group scores. The internal consistency of the PSC-Korean version was excellent (Cronbach's alpha = 0.95). The test-retest reliability was r = 0.73 (P or = 60) and presence of clinical diagnosis, the recommended cut-off score of the PSC was 14. Using 494 Korean children aged 7-12 yr, the current study assessed the reliability and validity of a Korean version of the PSC and suggested a cut-off for recommending further clinical assessment. The present results suggest that the Korean version of the PSC has good internal consistency and validity using the standard of CBCL scores.