SINTOMAS DEPRESSIVOS E MUCOSITE ORAL EM PACIENTES PEDIÁTRICOS COM DOENÇAS ONCOLÓGICAS

Abstract

Depressive symptoms are among the challenges faced by children and adolescents during cancer treatment, due to the adverse effects of the therapy, which can lead to a decrease in quality of life and, consequently, can induce symptoms of irritability, mood and behavior changes. An important side effect caused by it is oral mucositis, which has a multifactorial etiology and causes impairment in chewing, swallowing, phonetics, and is a painful experience. Therefore, the objective of this study was to verify the correlation between depressive symptoms and the appearance of oral mucositis in children with oncological diseases treated at a hospital in Bahia. This is a cross-sectional study, carried out with children and adolescents between 4 and 18 years old, diagnosed with primary neoplasms. Data collection was carried out with the aid of a questionnaire that dealt with sociodemographic and oral hygiene aspects, in addition to clinical examinations to determine the caries experience, degree of oral mucositis by the World Health Organization index, risk of oral mucositis by the Child's International Mucositis Evaluation Scale and depressive symptoms by the Children's Depression Inventory. Data were analyzed and submitted to Spearman's correlation, chi-square test and Fisher's exact test, considering p<0.05. There was a statistically significant correlation between depressive symptoms and the degree of oral mucositis (p=0.044), as well as between the variable “pain”, within the risk of oral mucositis and depressive symptoms (p=0.021). Oral mucositis prevalence rates of 4.4% and depressive symptoms was 1.1% within the studied sample were also observed; statistically significant associations were also found between the appearance of lesions and neutropenia (p=0.012) and hospitalization of research participants (p=0.01). Based on the findings, it was possible to infer that oral mucositis may be associated with the establishment of depressive symptoms and may probably be influenced by the individual's hospitalization and the degree of hematological toxicity he presents, due to oncological therapy.