Symptom research with advanced lung cancer patients
has primarily focused on symptom severity, frequency, and distress; yet, little
is known about advanced lung cancer patients’ priorities and success criteria
for symptom improvement. To address
these gaps in the literature, this study examined these outcomes using a
modified Patient Centered Outcomes Questionnaire (PCOQ), which has largely been
used with adults with chronic pain.
Advanced lung cancer patients (<i>N</i>
= 102) were recruited from the Indiana University Simon Cancer Center to participate
in a one-time self-report survey, including demographic and medical
questionnaires, symptom treatment history, standardized measures of symptom
severity and quality of life, and the modified PCOQ focused on eight common
symptoms in advanced lung cancer. Cancer
information was collected from medical records.
My primary aim was to evaluate the construct validity of the PCOQ. As hypothesized, symptom severity ratings on
the PCOQ were positively correlated with standardized assessments of the same
symptoms as well as functional status.
Greater severity of most symptoms on the PCOQ was also correlated with
worse quality of life, and greater severity of four symptoms was correlated
with having more medical comorbidities. Positive,
moderate correlations were found between the severity and importance of seeing
improvement in cough, fatigue, sleep problems, and pain on the PCOQ. Patients considered low levels of symptom
severity to be acceptable following symptom treatment; no differences were found
across the eight symptoms. Latent
profile analysis identified four patient subgroups based on the importance of
seeing improvement in each of the symptoms: (1) those who rated all symptoms as
low in importance (<i>n</i> = 12); (2) those who rated bronchial symptoms and
sleep problems as low in importance and all other symptoms as moderately
important (<i>n</i> = 29); (3) those who rated nausea and emotional distress as
low in importance and all other symptoms as moderately important (<i>n</i> =
23); and (4) those who rated all symptoms as highly important (<i>n</i> = 33). These subgroups were unrelated to demographic
and clinical factors, except for functional status. Findings suggest that symptom severity and
importance are related yet distinct aspects of the advanced lung cancer symptom
experience. Furthermore, patients have
heterogeneous priorities for symptom management, which has implications for
tailoring treatment.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:purdue.edu/oai:figshare.com:article/12205889 |
| Date | 02 May 2020 |
| Creators | Ellen Frances Krueger (8774147) |
| Source Sets | Purdue University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis |
| Rights | CC BY 4.0 |
| Relation | https://figshare.com/articles/Development_of_a_Patient_Centered_Outcomes_Questionnaire_for_Advanced_Lung_Cancer_Patients/12205889 |
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