Abstract

Pediatric cancer treatment can negatively impact cognitive and psychosocial development, although it has been suggested that these adverse effects may be minimized when children have higher resilience and better executive functioning. We aimed to evaluate the impact of pediatric Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) treatment on executive function, resilience and stress in survivors and to investigate correlations between executive functioning and resilience and between executive functioning and stress. The neuropsychological assessment was performed in 32 ALL survivors aged 7–17 years and 28 age-, sex- and socioeconomic status matched controls. Executive functioning was assessed by inhibitory control, mental flexibility and working memory tasks. Children’s self-report scales were used to assess stress symptoms and resilience. Results revealed no executive function impairment nor stress symptom differences between ALL survivors and control group. In the ALL group, executive function and resilience were positively correlated, whereas executive function and stress were negatively correlated. We concluded that ALL treatment was not associated with impairment in executive functioning nor to increased stress symptoms in our sample. ALL survivors with better performance in mental flexibility and inhibition tasks reported fewer stress symptoms and more resilience, indicating a possible relationship between these variables.

摘要

小儿癌症治疗会对认知和心理社会发展产生负面影响，尽管有人建议，当儿童具有更高的复原力和更好的执行功能时，这些不利影响可能会最小化。我们旨在评估小儿急性淋巴细胞白血病 (ALL) 治疗对幸存者执行功能、复原力和压力的影响，并研究执行功能与复原力之间以及执行功能与压力之间的相关性。对 32 名 7-17 岁的 ALL 幸存者和 28 名年龄、性别和社会经济地位匹配的对照组进行了神经心理学评估。执行功能通过抑制控制、心理灵活性和工作记忆任务进行评估。儿童的自我报告量表用于评估压力症状和复原力。结果显示所有幸存者和对照组之间没有执行功能障碍或压力症状差异。在 ALL 组中，执行功能和复原力呈正相关，而执行功能和压力呈负相关。我们得出结论，ALL 治疗与执行功能受损无关，也与我们样本中的压力症状增加无关。所有在心理灵活性和抑制任务方面表现更好的幸存者都报告说压力症状更少，复原力更强，这表明这些变量之间可能存在关系。我们得出结论，ALL 治疗与执行功能受损无关，也与我们样本中的压力症状增加无关。所有在心理灵活性和抑制任务方面表现更好的幸存者都报告说压力症状更少，复原力更强，这表明这些变量之间可能存在关系。我们得出结论，ALL 治疗与执行功能受损无关，也与我们样本中的压力症状增加无关。所有在心理灵活性和抑制任务方面表现更好的幸存者都报告说压力症状更少，复原力更强，这表明这些变量之间可能存在关系。