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Conference presentation
Exploring the relationship between fear of treatment and treatment outcomes impacting survivorship in head and neck cancer patients (2019)
Psycho-Oncology, Vol.28(Supplement 1)
Abstracts of the American Psychosocial Oncology Society 16th Annual Conference, John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
American Psychosocial Oncology Society (Atlanta, Georgia, USA, 02/2019)
02/20/2019
Abstract
Background/Purpose: Nearly all Head and Neck Cancer (HNC) patients experience some degree of treatment related fear on cancer diagnosis. Given the high prevalence of treatment related side effects and burden of treatment-related fear in HNC population, this prospective study aims to evaluate the relationship between fear of treatment and treatment outcomes following chemo-radiation therapy (CRT) in HNC patients. Results of this study will further our understanding of the relationship between psychological co-morbidities and physical symptoms/outcomes.
Methods: Forty-eight newly diagnosed HNC patients at Florida Health Center completed a set of surveys at the time of diagnosis and end of CRT. Data collection included disease and treatment related information along with surveys such as fear of treatment, adherence to self-management, pain, depression, and worry. Associations between demographic and outcome variables were evaluated using chi-squared and T tests. To further investigate the primary outcome variables, cross correlations, t-tests, repeated measures ANOVA were applied.
Results: Majority of the patients were Caucasian males, with mean age 62.6 years and modal tumor stage 2. Pretreatment fear was correlated with uncertainty about the future, intrusive thoughts, and anxiety about treatment. Post hoc analysis revealed patients consuming food via mouth post treatment were significantly less fearful as compared to those feeding via tube. Further, results suggest higher fear and pain levels at baseline are associated with lower adherence to self-management behaviors.
Conclusions and Implications: Our findings suggest higher levels of fear prior to treatment may be related to poorer treatment outcomes in HNC patients thus impacting survivorship and quality of life. Adherence to self-management behaviors is crucial in cancer care and quality of life. This study provides evidence that psychological fear impacts physical treatment outcomes in HNC patients, thus efforts to overcome fear are needed to improve survivorship following CRT.
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Details
- Title
- Exploring the relationship between fear of treatment and treatment outcomes impacting survivorship in head and neck cancer patients (2019)
- Publication Details
- Psycho-Oncology, Vol.28(Supplement 1)
- Resource Type
- Conference presentation
- Conference
- American Psychosocial Oncology Society (Atlanta, Georgia, USA, 02/2019)
- Publisher
- John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
- Series
- Abstracts of the American Psychosocial Oncology Society 16th Annual Conference
- Copyright
- © the author(s)
- Identifiers
- 99380578760706600
- Academic Unit
- Public Health; Usha Kundu, MD College of Health
- Language
- English