Fear of Cancer Recurrence and Related Factors in Early Stage Lung Cancer Patients
Date Issued
2015
Date
2015
Author(s)
Lin, Shih-Ting
Abstract
Fear of cancer recurrence (FCR) is one of the common problems in cancer patients. Of various types of cancer, lung cancer is of a relatively high mortality rate and low survival rate. Even for patients who have received early lung cancer treatment might experience FCR. However, limited published studies have focused on FCR in treated early-stage lung cancer survivors. Thus, the purposes of this study are (i) to examine the levels (severity) of FCR and (ii) to examine the factors related to FCR. A cross-sectional design with consecutive sampling was conducted to recruit 86 early-stage lung cancer survivors in the surgical outpatient department of a medical center in Northern Taiwan. Participants were assessed by study nurses and completed self-reported measures assessing (i) Severity Subscale of the Fear of Cancer Recurrence Inventory (FCRI-S), (ii) European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire-Cancer 30 (EORTC QLQ-C30), (iii) European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire-Lung cancer 13 (EORTC QLQ-LC 13), (iv) The Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R), and (v) Background Information Form. Means and standard deviations (SD) were used to describe the levels of FCR. Pearson’s correlation, Independent - Samples t test and stepwise linear regression were used to identify factors related to FCR. Results of the current study indicated that 86.1% of the participants had mild to high levels of FCR. In addition, patients with higher levels of education reported higher levels of FCR than patients with lower levels of education (t=-2.01). Furthermore, participants who had worse symptoms reported experiencing higher levels of FCR, including dyspnea (r=0.37), fatigue (r=0.35), sleep difficulties (r=0.27) and pain (r=0.23). Regarding the impact of events, intrusion (r=0.72), avoidance (r=0.65) and hyperarousal (r=0.70) behaviors were also associated with FCR. The results of stepwise linear regression showed that intrusion and hyperarousal were the major factors to predict the levels of FCR, and these two variables accounted for 56% of the total variance. The results of the current study demonstrated that FCR is a major problem in early-stage lung cancer survivors. Therefore, multidisciplinary primary health care team should pay special attention to patients with moderate to high level of FCR, and provide further assistance to reduce their FCR and improve their quality of life.
Subjects
lung cancer
fear of cancer recurrence
severity of symptoms
impact of events
SDGs
Type
thesis
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