Symptom cluster and sense of coherence in digestive tract cancer patients during chemotherapy / 中国心理卫生杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To understand the symptom cluster and its connection with sense of coherence in patients with digestive tract cancer during chemotherapy.Methods:A total of 212 patients with digestive tract cancer during chemotherapy were surveyed with the M.D.Anderson Symptom Inventory (MDASI) and the Sense of Coherence (SOC) scale in 2 hospitals in Anhui Province.Exploratory factor analysis were used to extract the symptom clusters.Spearman correlation analysis were used to determine the relationships between the symptom clusters and SOC.Two subgroups were classified based on the scores of symptom clusters by using cluster analysis,and two independent samples t-tests were used to compare the differences between the two groups.Results:According to the factor analysis,four symptom clusters were identified,including psychological symptom cluster,gastrointestinal symptom cluster,fatigue-pain symptom cluster and neurotoxic symptom cluster.The cumulative variance contribution rate was 64.16％.The fatigue-pain symptom cluster was divided into fatigue symptom cluster and pain symptom cluster according to the correlation.Those 5 symptom clusters were negatively correlated with the SOC (r =-0.14-0.57,Ps ＜ 0.05).Two subgroups were classified based on the cluster analysis,patients in the high-score group (n =81) had significantly lower SOC scores (P ＜ 0.001) than those in low-score group (n =131).Conclusion:It suggests that digestive tract cancer patients during chemotherapy could experience several physiology and psychology symptom clusters,which are significantly negatively correlate with the sense of coherence.