View/Open - Scholarly Commons Home

In summary, older age was associated with poorer reported wellbeing. Lower
socioeconomic status was associated with greater conduct problems but not any other
scale. Of note, Māori reported the most difficulties with four of the SDQ subscales and
while this did not reach statistical significance and the numbers were low it may be
clinically important. Of the cancer characteristics which included diagnosis groups and
treatment types, older age at cancer diagnosis was associated with poorer wellbeing.
The CNS diagnosis group reported the greatest number of difficulties with the
emotional and peer problem scales of the SDQ but not on any other measure. While not
statistically significant males reported slightly more conduct problems than females
(16.5% vs. 12.7%) and higher abnormal/ borderline social difficulties (16.5% vs. 9.7%),
with females reporting increased difficulties on the emotional scale (16.9% vs. 11%).
There were no gender differences in reported anxiety or depression. There were no other
demographic or cancer characteristics that were significantly associated with adverse
wellbeing.
4.4 Research Question 3. Compare the psychosocial wellbeing of childhood
cancer survivors to a normative control group of NZ youth aged 12 to 18
years.
The gender distribution within the childhood cancer survivors and the normative
control group of NZ youth was similar. Males accounted for 57% of CCS and 54% of
Youth’07. Mean age at time of survey was 15 years for both groups. Europeans were
more highly represented in the CCS group (68.2% vs. 52.6%) with fewer Asians than
the Y’07 group (5.9% vs. 18.4%, p = .001).
55