Sense of Coherence and Health-Related Quality of Life in Patients With Brain Metastases.

Xian Qiu,Bei-Wen Wu,Peng Zhao,Si-Jian Pan,Nan Zhang

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01516

Abstract

With improvements in treatments for primary tumor and brain metastases (BM), the life expectancy of patients with advanced cancers is increasing; thus, helping patients with BM maintain quality of life is becoming increasingly important. Sense of coherence (SOC) has been found to be closely related to health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in patients with chronic diseases, however, this relationship has not been validated in patients with BM. This study first examined the relationship between SOC and HRQoL in patients with BM, and further identified factors associated with SOC in these patients. Patients with BM reported lower scores for most of the functioning subscales and for the general rating of quality of life, and higher scores for most of the symptom subscales, compared with a normative sample. SOC was significantly correlated with most aspects of HRQoL in patients with BM. Further, SOC in the patients was associated with awareness of the disease, possession of religious belief, and type of primary cancer. These results validate the close relationship between SOC and HRQoL in patients with BM, and indicate that SOC is associated with awareness of illness and religious belief.

Highlights

Metastatic brain tumors occur when primary tumor cells from other parts of the body metastasize to the brain
Some cancer survivors show successful psychosocial adjustment to the illness (Aderhold et al, 2019). Such adjustment can be closely related to sense of coherence (SOC), which is associated with reduced depressive symptoms in cancer patients (Aderhold et al, 2019)
The patients’ functional impairment, as indicated by the Karnofsky Performance Scale (KPS) score (Karnofsky et al, 1948), which was rated by a nurse based on the medical record and an interview with patient or family, ranged from 30 to 100

Summary

Introduction

Metastatic brain tumors occur when primary tumor cells from other parts of the body metastasize to the brain. It is estimated that 20–40% of patients with cancer will develop brain metastases (BM), and the incidence of BM is 4–5 times more common than that of primary brain tumors (Kalkanis and Linskey, 2010). The prognosis for patients with BM is poor, their life expectancy is increasing due to improvements in systemic management of primary tumor and BM. Some cancer survivors show successful psychosocial adjustment to the illness (Aderhold et al, 2019). Such adjustment can be closely related to sense of coherence (SOC), which is associated with reduced depressive symptoms in cancer patients (Aderhold et al, 2019). SOC is defined as “a global orientation that expresses the extent to which one has a pervasive, enduring though dynamic feeling of confidence that (i) the stimuli deriving from one’s internal and external environments in the course of living are structured, predictable, and explicable; (ii) the resources to meet the demands

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