Published in:
Open Access 01-08-2010 | Original Article
Psychosocial distress in acute cancer patients assessed with an expert rating scale
Published in: Supportive Care in Cancer | Issue 8/2010
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Purpose
The identification of psychosocial stress in cancer patients has remained a challenging task especially in an acute care environment. The aims of the present study were to apply a short expert rating scale for the assessment of distress during the acute treatment phase and to identify potential sociodemographic and disease-related predictors.
Methods
Four hundred seventy-eight ward cancer patients were assessed with the short form of the psycho-oncological basis documentation and its breast-cancer-specific version. In addition, they completed a self-rating questionnaire on stress in cancer patients. We recorded sociodemographic and disease-related variables and assessed their predictive value for psychosocial distress.
Results
According to the expert rating scale, 56.3% of patients were rated distressed. While only 31.3% of patients were classified as distressed according to a patient self-rating, both approaches showed a good degree of concurrence with a consistent classification of 69% of patients. Younger age, current psychotropic medication, and past psychological treatment were associated with higher distress levels. Patients with metastases and those with a poorer functional status were more distressed. Interestingly, having an operation was associated with a better psychological well-being.
Conclusions
This study demonstrated that a substantial proportion of cancer patients in acute care are psychosocially distressed. A short expert rating scale proved to be a feasible tool for the assessment of distress in an acute care setting.