Abstract
We aimed to investigate the somatic distress and psychological symptoms levels of cancer patients, and analyze the influencing factors on somatic distress during COVID-19 pandemic. This cross-sectional study included 216 eligible cancer patients. The Patient Health Questionnaire-15, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Checklist for DSM-5, The Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale-21, the Brief Resilience Scale, the Stressful Life Events List due to Pandemic were administered to the participants. The moderate to severe somatic distress rate was % 38 and probable PTSD rate was 20.4%. Depression, anxiety and stress symptoms were 36.1%, 49.1% and 45.4%, respectively, from mild to extremely severe. There were substantial association between somatic symptoms severity and high PTSD, anxiety, depression, and stress symptoms levels. Low education, high anxiety levels, high experience stressful life events, and low psychological resilience predicted high somatic distress. This study demonstrates the high risk of somatic distress, PTSD, depression, anxiety and stress in patients with cancer during the pandemic. In addition, somatic distress may indicate high levels of psychological symptoms, high experience stressful life events, and low psychological resilience. It underscores the need to assess psychological status during the pandemic, especially those with high level somatic symptoms.
Highlights
Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been detected for the first time in December 2019 in Wuhan, China as a novel pneumonia causing respiratory tract infection (Wang et al, 2020)
The Patient Health Questionnaire-15 (PHQ-15), Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist for DSM-5 (PCL-5), The Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale-21(DASS-21), the Brief Resilience Scale (BRS), the Stressful Life Events List due to Pandemic and, demographic and clinical characteristics were administered to the participants with face to face interweaving by author AE who senior social worker trained for the study
We found a significant relationship between the severity of somatic symptoms and the levels of anxiety, depression, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and stress symptoms
Summary
Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been detected for the first time in December 2019 in Wuhan, China as a novel pneumonia causing respiratory tract infection (Wang et al, 2020). Most people infected with the Covid-19 virus have been experienced mild to moderate respiratory syndrome and have been recovered without special treatment. The COVID-19 pandemic has created an unprecedented change in the lives of people worldwide, especially in patients with chronic diseases. Those with cancer may be vulnerable to more severe disease due to their immunocompromised status from the underlying malignancy itself, as well as decreased immunity from cancer-directed treatments, additional medical comorbidities, and poor nutritional status (Gonzalez et al, 2020)
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