A mother's diagnosis of breast cancer at a young age does not significantly affect her children's emotional development, according to a new study.

Professor Kim Hee-jeong of the Department of Breast Surgery and Professor Kim Hyo-won of the Department of Pediatric Psychiatry at Asan Medical Center (AMC) in Seoul analyzed the results of the Child Behavior Check List (CBCL) tests administered to the children under 12 of 499 patients diagnosed with breast cancer at a young age ranging from 20 to 45.

They found that 87 percent of the children were in the normal range of emotional development, even 3 percent higher than the average child, suggesting that a breast cancer diagnosis does not have a significant impact on children's emotional development.

The CBCL test is a widespread and reliable screening method for assessing social adjustment and emotional and behavioral problems in children and adolescents. It comprehensively measures anxiety, depression, rule-breaking, and aggressive behavior.

About 84 percent of people who take the test typically belong to the normal range, and 8 percent show a level requiring clinical treatment.

Younger breast cancer patients are often concerned that their emotional development will be affected, but the results of the CBCL test show that this should not be a concern, with 87 percent of children scoring in the normal range.

On the other hand, when comparing the risk of depression among 200 breast cancer patients with young children and those without, the risk of depression was about 2.3 times higher among breast cancer patients with young children, indicating that they were more emotionally disturbed.

Also, higher scores on the Korean Parenting Stress Index Short Form (K-PSI-SF), which measures parenting stress, were associated with a 1.06 times higher risk of depression.

Patients with 6-12-years-old children were 3.1 times more likely to have parenting stress than those with children under 6. Patients with family members who can take care of children were 3.4 times less likely to have parenting stress than those who were the primary caregivers.

Regardless of children, longer duration of breast cancer was not associated with greater depression but instead showed eased symptoms.

As a result of analyzing the changes in mean scores on the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Rating (CESD-R), a self-report measure of depression, patients with less than one year of disease had a mean score of about 11. In contrast, those with more than five years of disease had a mean score of five.

"Breast cancer patients with minor children struggle with the idea that they are not able to take better care of their children because they are focused on their cancer treatment,” Professor Kim Hyo-won said. “However, there was no significant relationship between their breast cancer diagnosis and their children's emotional development,"

Professor Kim Hee-jeong said, "Being diagnosed with breast cancer at a young age can be relatively frustrating, and having young children increases the risk of emotional problems such as depression and parenting stress.”

Kim added that emotional problems can affect treatment outcomes, so they need to reduce their stress as much as possible and focus on treatment with a positive mindset instead of feeling sorry for their children.

The findings were recently published in JAMA Network Open (IF=13.8), the American Medical Association publication.