A survey was conducted on the social support, parenting stress, anxiety, physical and mental health, and sleep quality of the fathers or mothers of children undergoing liver transplantation before the operation, and a correlation analysis was conducted.

A total of 355 fathers or mothers of children who were scheduled to undergo living liver transplantation at the Renji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine were selected as the research subjects. A general information questionnaire, the social support rating scale (SSRS), the parenting stress index-short form (PSI-SF), the Pittsburgh sleep quality index (PSQI) scale, the generalized anxiety disorder-7 (GAD-7) scale, and the World Health Organization five-item well-being index (WHO-5) were used for questionnaire survey and analysis. Pearson correlation analysis was used for correlation test, and Kruskal-Wallis rank sum test was used to analyze the factors affecting the sleep quality of parents with different characteristics of their children. P<0.05 was considered statistically significant.

The average SSRS score of 355 children who needed liver transplantation was (43.9±9.0). The average PSI-SF score was (81.2±27.5), the average GAD-7 score was (7.8±5.3), the average WHO-5 score was (12.4±6.5), and the median PSQI score was 7.0 (4.0, 11.0). The difference in PSQI scores between parents of children with different sleep durations was statistically significant (Z=4.759, P<0.05). Children with a clear to sleep late and wake up late had the highest PSQI score, while those with a clear early to bed and wake up early had the lowest score, with scores of 10.0 (5.0, 13.5) and 4.0 (1.0, 6.5), respectively. The difference in PSQI scores between parents of children with different marital statuses was statistically significant (Z=2.732, P<0.05), with the highest being widowhood and the second being unmarried. The sleep quality of the father or mother of the patient was positively correlated with anxiety (r=0.541) and negatively correlated with physical and mental health (r=-0.584). Anxiety was negatively correlated with physical and mental health (r=-0.584), while parental stress was negatively correlated with social support (r=-0.380).

Most parents of children who plan to undergo liver transplantation have sleep disorders, mild depression and anxiety, high parental pressure, and low social support. Overall, effective measures should be taken to improve poor physical and mental health to provide effective and long-term support for subsequent pediatric liver transplantation.