Abstract
BackgroundEsophageal cancer patients often feel depressed and are fearful of metastasis and death. The objective of this study was to clarify the characteristics of patients with psychological distress at all 5 time points compared with patients with no psychological distress especially from standpoints of personal coping styles and QOL.MethodsIn total, 102 of 152 consecutive patients who attended the outpatient clinic at Toranomon Hospital between April 2017 and April 2019 met eligibility criteria for inclusion in this study. Questionnaires designed to identify psychological distress (HADS-scores) and assess QOL (EORTC QLQ C-30/OES18) were administered at 5 time points from the time of the first outpatient consultation to 3 months after esophagectomy. The questionnaire of coping strategies (MAC-scales) was administered at only time 1 point.ResultsBased on the trends of HADS-scores, we defined two groups: “persistent high-HAD scores” and “persistent low-HADS scores.” There are strong relationships between psychological distress and coping strategy, and psychological distress and QOL. The possibility that there are relationships between stress coping strategies and some QOL status depending on some point of treatment.ConclusionsThe psychological distress during the treatment course of esophageal cancer is significantly associated with the coping strategies and QOL influenced by esophagectomy. This study can provide baseline information for identifying patients in need of psychological management and paves the way for larger clinical studies in the future.
Highlights
Esophagectomy is the mainstay of curative treatment for esophageal cancer
We described the relationship between psychological distress and health-related quality of life (HRQOL) on each point of the treatment of esophageal cancer in the past report [8]
Patient characteristics Fifty of the 152 patents considered for participation in the study were excluded because they had incomplete data (n = 27), declined to participate (n = 11), did not undergo esophagectomy (n = 11), or were receiving treatment for a psychiatric disorder (n = 1), leaving 102 patients for inclusion in the study
Summary
Esophagectomy is the mainstay of curative treatment for esophageal cancer. it is a highly invasive surgery with serious postoperative complications and is one Ohkura et al World Journal of Surgical Oncology (2020) 18:326 the diagnosis and treatment of cancer and the mental health of the patient itself is considered to be very important factors. There are two types of patients who always feel stress and who always don’t feel stress during the perioperative period [9] This fact may suggest that these two patients groups (persistent high group and persistent low group) compared with other groups may have different coping styles and that it would be of great help to select these types of patients before starting treatment for the selection of candidates of efficient intervention. We extracted these two groups in the present study as “persistent high (H-) group” and “persistent low (L-) group” and further adding the Mental Adjustment to Cancer scale (MAC) to our previously reported scores. The objective of this study was to clarify the characteristics of patients with psychological distress at all 5 time points compared with patients with no psychological distress especially from standpoints of personal coping styles and QOL
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