Psychosocial encounters correlates with higher patient-reported functional quality of life in gynecological cancer patients receiving radiotherapy

Radiation Oncology

Lilie Lin¹  Andrea B Troxel²  Mary K McFadien¹  Surbhi Grover¹  Kay See Tan²  Penny Fang¹ 

[1] Department of Radiation Oncology, Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA;Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, University of Pennsylvania, PCAM/TRC 4 West, 3400 Civic Center Blvd, Philadelphia 19104, PA, USA

关键词: Psychological support;    MDASI;    FACT-G;    Patient reported outcomes;    Radiation therapy;    Gynecologic cancer;   

Others  :  1149674
DOI  :  10.1186/s13014-015-0339-2

 received in 2014-07-27, accepted in 2015-01-26,  发布年份 2015

【 摘 要 】

Background

Our objective was to assess longitudinal health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in patients treated with radiotherapy for gynecologic malignancy and assess the relationship of psychosocial encounters on HRQoL.

Methods

Women with gynecologic malignancy were prospectively enrolled and HRQoL assessed before, during, and after radiotherapy treatment using validated measures. Treatment and demographic information were reviewed. Mixed-effects models were used to assess changes in quality of life (QoL) over time and association of psychologist and social worker encounters with overall QoL as well as subdomains of QoL.

Results

Fifty-two women were enrolled and 41 completed at least one assessment. Fatigue (p = 0.008), nausea (p = 0.001), feeling ill (p = 0.007), and being bothered by side effects (p < 0.001) worsened on treatment with subsequent improvement. By follow-up, patients reported increased functional well-being (FWB) with significant decrease in worry (p = 0.003), increase in enjoyment of things usually done for fun (p = 0.003) and increase in contentment (p = 0.047). Twenty-three patients had at least one interaction with a social worker or psychologist during treatment. Each additional interaction was associated with a 2.12 increase in FWB score from before to after treatment (p = 0.002), and 1.74 increase from on to after treatment (p = 0.011). Additional interactions were not significantly associated with changes in overall FACT score (p = 0.056) or SWB (p = 0.305).

Conclusions

Patient-reported HRQoL significantly worsened during radiotherapy treatment with subsequent improvement, affirming transiency of treatment-induced toxicities. Our preliminary study suggests that clinically-recommended psychological and social work interventions have potential value with respect to improving patient QoL during radiotherapy. Larger studies are needed to validate our findings.

【 授权许可】

   
2015 Fang et al.; licensee BioMed Central.

【 图 表 】

Figure 1.

Figure 2.

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