Investigation of symptom clusters in breast cancer patients treated with anthracycline chemotherapy / 中国实用护理杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To explore the clinical symptom clusters in breast cancer patients with anthracycline treatment, which could provide evidence for prevention. Methods The M.D.Anderson Symptom Inventory of Chinese version (MDASI-C) was applied to assess clinical symptoms in 506 breast cancer patients received anthracycline therapy during their 1stto 4thcycle chemotherapy.Thirteen symptoms were analyzed using main-component analysis and variance orthogonal rotation. The exploratory factor analysis was conducted to find factors value greater than 1. Results The number of symptoms with incidence rate more than 50% was 5, 6, 7 and 9 during the 1stto the 4thcycle, respectively. Fatigue, poor appetite, and nausea were the most common symptoms, and the incidence of these symptoms were 92.5% to 97.1% ,84.8% to 95.1% and 81.1% to 91.3% with the increasing cycle of chemotherapy.Three factors value greater than 1 were detected during the 1stto 2ndcycle chemotherapy by exploratory factor analysis.The cumulative variance contribution rates were 63.233% and 61.434% in the 1stand 2ndcycle, respectively. The main symptom clusters concentrate on fatigue and digestive tract symptoms, including fatigue, sleep disturbance, hypersomnia, nausea, vomit, poor appetite, dry mouth. Two factors value greater than 1 were detected during 3rdto4thcycle in chemotherapy. The cumulative variance contribution rates were 62.660% and 61.148% in the 3rdand 4thcycle, respectively. The main symptom clusters concentrate on psychological and nervous system symptoms including sadness, pain, dry mouth, numbness, hypersomnia, shortness of breath, amnesia and so on. The Cronbach α of cluster symptoms from the 1stto the 4thcycle chemotherapy was between 0.829 to 0.911. Conclusions Symptom clusters vary with the cycles of chemotherapy in breast cancer patients treated with anthracycline. Nurses should provide targeted intervention measures to improve symptom and enhance quality of life, according to specific situation.