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 1st to 4th cycle 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 1st to the 4th cycle, 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 1st to 2ndcycle chemotherapy by exploratory factor analysis.The cumulative variance contribution rates were 63.233% and 61.434% in the 1st and 2nd cycle, 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 3rd to4thcycle in chemotherapy. The cumulative variance contribution rates were 62.660% and 61.148% in the 3rd and 4th cycle, 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 4th cycle 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. Key words: Breast neoplasms; Anthracyclines; Chemotherapy; Symptom clusters
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