Analysis of Factors Causing Anxiety in Children with Cancer Experiencing Hospitalization

Abstract

Hospitalization is a stressful experience, both for the child and his parents. Stress in children can cause sleep disturbances, decreased appetite, and developmental disorders so that this can delay the healing process of the disease. Stressors that children receive while being treated can be in the form of a foreign hospital environment, physical conditions such as pain and illness that children experience, treatment procedures and medical examinations at the hospital. The many stressors experienced by children while undergoing hospitalization have negative impacts that interfere with children's development. The purpose of this study was to determine the dominant of the six factors that cause anxiety in children with cancer who experience hospitalization. This study used an analytic descriptive design with a cross sectional study approach. Samples that met the inclusion criteria amounted to 165 people. The results of the six factors that cause anxiety in children with cancer who experience hospitalization, it was found that those with a p value <0.05 were complaints of pain and physical weakness. In complaints of pain, 163 children with cancer were found with an average anxiety score of 21.34. The statistical test produces a p value of 0.001 which is smaller than α (0.05), meaning that there is a significant relationship between pain and anxiety in children with cancer. Keywords: Anxiety, childhood cancer, hospitalization