A substantial investigation of discrepancy between patient complaints and assessment by medical personnel in chemotherapy-induced nausea

ABSTRACT

Purpose： In this study, we aimed to investigate the discrepancy between interview by medical personnel using 3‒point verbal rating scale (VRS) and patient complaints using numerical rating scale (NRS) in nausea diary for chemotherapy‒induced nausea. Patients and Method： In this study, we targeted patients who received chemotherapy at the gynecology department in our hospital and who recorded information in nausea diary. The discrepancy was estimated from NRS in nausea diary and the degree of nausea obtained by medical interview at approximately the same time period. We classified it into overvaluation, undervaluation or non‒discrepancy. Result： A total of 663 cases was analyzed, and 54 patientswere enrolled. The discrepancy was 25.2％ (undervaluation 5.4%; overvaluation 19.8％), and mostly overvaluation was observed. NRS in nausea diary had a significant correlation with the degree of nausea obtained by medical interview（P<0.001, r=0.66） , and the kappa statistic was 0.36. Conclusion： Ratio of non‒undervaluation is approximately 95%; hence, we conclude that interview by medical personnel using VRS accurately reflects the degree of nausea.