OBJECTIVETo evaluate the psychological situations of cleft lip and/or palate children's parents, to discuss the relationship between psychological situations and cleft types, and to provide clinical treatment to improve the psychological situations of these parents.

METHODS100 parents whose children were proceeded the primary surgery treatment were selected as the study group, and other 34 parents whose children were normal as the control group. All parents were inquired and tested by the life event scale (LES) and self-rating anxiety scale (SAS).

RESULTSThe LES total scores of the cleft lip and/or palate patients' parents were significantly high compared with the normal (P < 0.05). The SAS total scores of the cleft lip and/or palate patients' parents had no significant difference with the control group (P > 0.05). The scores of cleft lip and/or palate patients' parents were the highest and the scores of cleft palate patients' parents were the lowest.

CONCLUSIONMost of the cleft lip and/or palate patients' parents were disturbed by a negative psychological situation. Some kind of negative psychological situation may manifest some body symptoms. Meanwhile,the three subgroups' data had the significant difference, which indicated that parents may much more care about the appearance abnormality.