Abstract Adults treated for hematological malignancies may experience clinically significant posttraumatic stress symptoms during intensive treatment, hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT), and survivorship. Previous estimates are heterogeneous, and self-report screening instruments do not establish a formal PTSD diagnosis. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to estimate the prevalence of clinically significant PTSD symptoms based on self-report instruments in adult patients with hematological malignancies. We searched PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and Google Scholar for English- and Polish-language studies published between 2015 and 2025. Eligible studies included adults with hematological malignancies and reported the number of patients exceeding a validated self-report PTSD symptom threshold. The primary analysis was restricted to independent usual-care or observational estimates. The intervention arm of a randomized trial and a partially overlapping secondary analysis were excluded from the primary model. Proportions were synthesized using a logit-transformed random-effects model with REML estimation and Hartung–Knapp adjustment. We report 95% confidence intervals (CI), 95% prediction intervals (PI), tau-squared, and I-squared. Six studies provided seven extractable estimates ( N = 941). The primary analysis included five independent usual-care or observational estimates ( N = 797; 128 screen-positive cases). The pooled prevalence of clinically significant PTSD symptoms was 17.9% (95% CI: 8.8–33.0%; 95% PI: 3.2–59.1%). Between-study heterogeneity was substantial (I² = 89.3%; τ² = 0.38). Sensitivity analyses yielded pooled estimates from 15.7% to 20.9%, depending on whether overlapping cohorts, intervention-derived estimates, combined randomized-trial arms, or the only PCL-5 study were included. Clinically significant PTSD symptoms may occur in a meaningful proportion of adults with hematological malignancies, but the estimate is imprecise and setting-dependent. The evidence is limited by a small number of studies, substantial heterogeneity, reliance on self-report screening instruments, non-independent estimates in the original evidence base, and variation in clinical context, assessment timing, and instrument thresholds. The pooled estimate should not be interpreted as the prevalence of clinically diagnosed PTSD.
Gibek et al. (Mon,) studied this question.