Correlations between self-advocacy and symptom burden of breast cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy / 现代临床护理

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the status of self-advocacy and symptom burden in breast cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy and explore the correlations between them so as to provide a reference for relieving their symptom burden.Methods A total of 240 breast cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy who were treated in a general hospital in Hubei province from July 2021 to January 2022 were enrolled in the study by convenience sampling method.The general data questionnaire,female self-advocacy in cancer survivorship scale,and Chinese version of Anderson symptom assessment scale(MDASI)were applied in the investigation.Pearson correlation analysis was employed to explore the correlation between self-advocacy and symptom burden among breast cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy.Hierarchical regression was employed to analyze the effect of self-advocacy on symptom burden.Results A total of 240 patients completed the study.The total score of self-advocacy of the patients was(68.89±10.66),and the total score of symptom burden was(66.70±18.80).The two variables were significantly correlated in a negative way(r=-0.683,P<0.05).Hierarchical regression showed that self-advocacy ability independently explained 9.3%of the total variation in the symptom burden.Conclusions The incidences of various symptoms in breast cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy are high,and multiple symptoms coexist in the whole chemotherapy cycle.Symptom burden cannot be ignored,for it is negatively correlated with self-advocacy.Therefore,strengthening the concept and ability of self-advocacy can help reduce symptom burden of patients.