A systematic review of symptom assessment scales in children with cancer

BMC Cancer

Research Article

L Lee Dupuis¹  Deborah Tomlinson²  Marie-Chantal Ethier²  Tanya Hesser²  Lillian Sung³ 

[1] Department of Pharmacy, The Hospital for Sick Children, 555 University Avenue, M5G 1X8, Toronto, ON, Canada;Program in Child Health Evaluative Sciences, The Hospital for Sick Children, 555 University Avenue, M5G 1X8, Toronto, ON, Canada;Division of Haematology/Oncology, The Hospital for Sick Children, 555 University Avenue, M5G 1X8, Toronto, ON, Canada;Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada;Program in Child Health Evaluative Sciences, The Hospital for Sick Children, 555 University Avenue, M5G 1X8, Toronto, ON, Canada;Program in Child Health Evaluative Sciences, The Hospital for Sick Children, 555 University Avenue, M5G 1X8, Toronto, ON, Canada;Division of Haematology/Oncology, The Hospital for Sick Children, 555 University Avenue, M5G 1X8, Toronto, ON, Canada;

关键词: Symptom;    Screening;    Assessment;    Scale;    Children;    Cancer;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2407-12-430

 received in 2012-02-08, accepted in 2012-09-19,  发布年份 2012

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundThe objective was to describe symptom assessment scales that have been used in children with cancer.MethodsWe conducted electronic searches of OVID Medline and EMBASE in order to identify all symptom assessment scales that have been used in pediatric cancer. Two reviewers abstracted information from each identified study. Data collected included study demographics and information related to the instrument and children enrolled. We also collected information about the purpose of instrument administration and whether treatment was altered as a result of this information.ResultsFourteen studies were identified which evaluated eight different symptom assessment scales. Eight studies used child self-report and all studies included children on active treatment for cancer although 4 studies also included children following completion of treatment. The most common purpose of instrument administration was to measure the prevalence of symptom burden (n = 8). None of the 14 studies used the scale to screen for symptoms and none changed patient management on the basis of identified symptoms.ConclusionsWe failed to identify any symptom assessment scales that were used as a symptom screening tool. There is a need to develop such a tool for use in children with cancer.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Dupuis et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2012. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.