Health behavior of cancer patients during COVID-19 pandemic. Focus head neck cancer

ABSTRACT

Background: During pandemic coping strategies become very important for for each individual cancer patient. Are there any changes in health behavior of our patients due to pandemic? Methods: We have analyzed questionnaire data of 575 patients, among them 171 head neck cancer patients. 246+84 questionnaires were filled in May 2020 (wave 1) and 158+87 questionannaires were filled in October 2020 (wave 2). We asked for alcohol consumption (5-point Likert scale), sportive activities, meditation, praying, and drug abuse (all 4-point Likert scale). We compared each item at both time points (t-test, 2 fold, inhomogenous variance). Sub-analysis were performed for head and neck cancer patients. Results: Comparing between both time points, we see a stable alcohol consumption (1.700±1.463 vs. 1.66±1.428), a significant decreased in sportive activities (1.789±1.013 vs. 1.557±0.995, p=0.013), a trend to less meditation (0,571±0.951 vs. 0.408±0.873, p=0.056), a significant decrease in praying (0.938±1.225 vs. 0.650±1.126, p=0.009) and an unchanged drug abuse (0.366±0.891 vs. 0.392±0.942). Comparing head neck cancer patients with cancer patients of other tumor localizations, they show a significant stronger reduction of praying (p=0.002). During wave 2 head neck cancer patients reported about more alcohol consumption (1.473±1.491 versus 1.697±1.427) and drug abuse (0.333±0.875 versus 0.48±1.044). Conclusions: During pandemic we see a reduction of individual coping strategies and changes in physical and mental health behavior. Societal activities are necessary to encourage coping strategies as sports or spiritual care. Legal entity responsible for the study Academic study group "Spirituality in Oncology", Deutsche Krebsgesellschaft. Funding: Has not received any funding. Disclosure All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.