High levels of untreated distress and fatigue in cancer patients

By Linda E. Carlson, M. Angen, J. Cullum, E. Goodey, J. Koopmans, L. Lamont, J. MacRae, M. Martín, Guy Pelletier, John W. Robinson and 4 more. British Journal of Cancer, 2004

957 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The purpose of the study was to assess a large representative sample of cancer patients on distress levels, common psychosocial problems, and awareness and use of psychosocial support services. A total of 3095 patients were assessed over a 4-week period with the Brief Symptom Inventory-18 (BSI-18), a common problems checklist, and on awareness and use of psychosocial resources. Full data was available on 2776 patients. On average, patients were 60 years old, Caucasian (78.3%), and middle class. Approximately, half were attending for follow-up care. Types of cancer varied, with the largest groups being breast (23.5%), prostate (16.9%), colorectal (7.5%), and lung (5.8%) cancer patients. Overall, 37.8% of all patients met criteria for general distress in the clinical range. A higher proportion of men met case criteria for somatisation, and more women for depression. There were no gender differences in anxiety or overall distress severity. Minority patients were more likely to be distressed, as were those with lower income, cancers other than prostate, and those currently on active treatment. Lung, pancreatic, head and neck, Hodgkin's disease, and brain cancer patients were the most distressed. Almost half of all patients who met distress criteria had not sought professional psychosocial support nor did they intend to in the future. In conclusion, distress is very common in cancer patients across diagnoses and across the disease trajectory. Many patients who report high levels of distress are not taking advantage of available supportive resources. Barriers to such use, and factors predicting distress and use of psychosocial care, require further exploration.

Subfields: Oncology, Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health, Pulmonary and Respiratory Medicine

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b1f44304ff8fb06a22673d8c7604ae280ec6fa31

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Citations in the corpus

Anxiety and depression after cancer diagnosis: prevalence rates by cancer type, gender, and age. (2012, background): “On the other hand, the prevalence rates reported here do fit well into the range of prevalence rates reported elsewhere (Brintzenhofe-Szoc et al., 2009; Caminiti et al., 2004; Carlson et al., 2004; Hinz et al., 2010; Hopwood et al., 2009; Mitchell et al., 2011; Ng et al., 2010; Zabora et al., 2001) ”
Effects of psycho-oncologic interventions on emotional distress and quality of life in adult patients with cancer: systematic review and meta-analysis. (2013, background): “INTRODUCTION Being diagnosed with cancer imposes significant emotional distress on a substantial proportion of patients (35% to 38%).(1,2) At this point, however, the benefit of psycho-oncologic interventions for patients remains unclear.”
Impact of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) on sleep, mood, stress and fatigue symptoms in cancer outpatients (2005, background): “Fatigue is a common complaint of cancer patients and it has also been rated the longest lasting and the most disruptive symptom that results from treatment (Ancoli-Israel, Moore, & Jones, 2001; Barnes & Bruera, 2002; Carlson et al., 2004) In addition, fatigue is often the first symptom that patients”
Distress in couples coping with cancer: a meta-analysis and critical review of role and gender effects. (2008, background): “The largest studies of distress among persons with cancer with varying site and stage, involving about 4,500 (Zabora, Brintzenhofeszoc, Curbow, Hooker, & Piantadosi, 2001) and nearly 2,800 patients (Carlson et al., 2004), respectively, found that about 35% of the patients had elevated distress, a fi”