Symptom clusters in cancer patients
Symptom clusters in cancer patients
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DOI：
10.1007/s00520-006-0019-8
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发表时间：
2006-08-01
影响因子：
3.1
通讯作者：
Tseng, Ho-Ching
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Chen, Mei-Ling;Tseng, Ho-Ching
工作目标：癌症患者通常会出现多种症状，其中许多症状据报道彼此相关。本研究的目的是了解哪些癌症相关症状聚集在一起，并测试所揭示的症状群的概念意义。对象与方法：研究对象为台湾北方某医学中心之癌症病患（N=151）。13项医学博士采用安德森症状量表评定患者症状严重程度。使用具有倾斜旋转的主轴因子分解对选定的症状进行因子分解。已知组技术被用来验证揭示的因素的概念意义。主要结果：患者的症状严重程度等级符合三因素解决方案，解释了55%的方差。这三个因子（症状群）被命名为疾病症状群、胃肠道症状群和情绪症状群。疼痛和晚期疾病的患者在疾病症状群中的平均得分显著高于没有疼痛和早期疾病的患者。患者的功能状态与疾病症状群的平均得分呈负相关。化疗组患者的胃肠道症状平均评分显著高于其他治疗组。有焦虑或抑郁的患者在情绪症状群中的平均得分也显著高于无焦虑或抑郁的患者。结论：本研究确定了三个潜在的症状群，并验证了其概念意义的癌症患者。了解这些症状群可能有助于医疗保健专业人员了解症状聚集的合理机制。
Goals of work: Cancer patients often experience multiple symptoms, many of which have been reported to correlate with each other. The goals of this study were to understand which cancer-related symptoms cluster together and to test the conceptual meanings of the revealed symptom clusters. Parients and methods: Patients with various cancer diagnoses (N=151) were recruited from a medical center in northern Taiwan. The 13-item M.D. Anderson symptom inventory was used to assess patients' symptom severity. Selected symptoms were factored using principal-axis factoring with oblique rotation. The known-group technique was used to validate the conceptual meanings of revealed factors. Main results: Patients' symptom severity ratings fit a three-factor solution that explained 55% of the variance. These three factors (symptom clusters) were named sickness symptom cluster, gastrointestinal symptom cluster, and emotional symptom cluster. Patients with pain and with advanced diseases had significantly higher mean scores in the sickness symptom cluster than patients without pain and with earlier-stage diseases. The patients' functional status was negatively correlated with mean scores in the sickness symptom cluster. Patients under chemotherapy demonstrated significantly higher mean scores in the gastrointestinal symptom cluster than patients under other treatments. Patients with anxiety or depression also had significantly higher mean scores in the emotional symptom cluster than patients without anxiety or depression. Conclusions: This study identified three underlying symptom clusters and verified their conceptual meaning in cancer patients. Knowing these symptom clusters may help healthcare professionals understand plausible mechanisms for the aggregation of symptoms.