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Systematic self-reporting of patients’ symptoms: improving oncologic care and patients’ satisfaction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2022

Ernest Osei*
Affiliation:
Department of Medical Physics, Grand River Regional Cancer Centre, Kitchener, ON, Canada Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada Department of Systems Design Engineering, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada Department of Clinical Studies, Ontario Veterinary College, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada
Catherine B. McKenna
Affiliation:
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada
Johnson Darko
Affiliation:
Department of Medical Physics, Grand River Regional Cancer Centre, Kitchener, ON, Canada Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada Department of Clinical Studies, Ontario Veterinary College, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada
Kathy McKnight
Affiliation:
Social Work Department, Grand River Regional Cancer Centre, Kitchener, ON, Canada
Christine Peters
Affiliation:
Waterloo Wellington Regional Cancer Program, Grand River Regional Cancer Centre, Kitchener, ON, Canada
*
Author for correspondence: Dr Ernest Osei, Department of Medical Physics, Grand River Regional Cancer Centre, 835 King Street West, Kitchener, ON, Canada. Tel: 519 749 4300. E-mail: ernest.osei@grhosp.on.ca

Abstract

Background:

In recent years, there has been a growing interest to enhance patients’ symptom management during routine cancer care using patient-reported outcome measures. The goal of this study is to analyse patients’ responses to the Edmonton Symptom Assessment System (ESAS) to determine whether patient-reported outcomes could help characterise those patients with the highest supportive care needs and symptom burden in order to help provide targeted support for patients.

Methods:

In this study, we analysed ESAS questionnaire responses completed by patients as part of their routine care and considered part of patients’ standard of care. Statistical analyses were performed using the IBM SPSS Statistics version 26.0. Descriptive statistics are used to summarise patient demographics, disease characteristics and patient-reported symptom severity and prevalence.

Results:

The overall mean age is 65.2 ± 12.8 years comprising 43.8% male and 56.2% female patients. The five common primary disease sites are breast (26.2%), haematology (21.1%), gastrointestinal (15.3%), genitourinary (12.7%) and lung (12.0%) cancers. The mean severity for each symptom is all mild (score: 1–3). The three most common reported symptoms causing distress are tiredness, poor overall wellbeing and anxiety, and the least reported symptom is nausea.

Conclusions:

Systematic self-reporting of patients’ symptoms is important to improve symptom management, timely facilitation of appropriate intervention, patient experience, and patient and family satisfaction. The awareness of disease site, gender and age-related symptom variations should help in the design and provision of appropriate symptom-directed, tumour-specific and patient-focused interventions to meet patients’ immediate needs.

Type
Original Article
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

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