The prevalence of psychological distress by cancer site

Purpose: The goal of this project was to determine the prevalence of psycho logical distress among a large sample of cancer patients (n = 4496). In add ition, variations in distress among 14 cancer diagnoses were examined. Patients and methods: The sample was extracted From a database that consist s of 9000 patients who completed the Brief Symptom Inventory as a component of comprehensive cancer care. Relevant data points for each case included age, diagnosis, gender, insurance status, marital status, race and zip code . Simple frequencies, percentages, measures of central tendency and variabi lity were calculated. In addition, a univariate and multiple regression ana lysis was used to examine the relationships of these relevant variables to psychological distress. Results: The overall prevalence rate of distress for this sample was 35.1%. The rate varied form 43.4% for lung cancer to 29.6% for gynecological canc ers. While some rates were significantly different, diagnoses with a poorer prognosis and greater patient burden produced similar rates of distress. P ancreatic cancer patients produced the highest mean scores for symptoms suc h as anxiety and depression, while Hodgkin's patients exhibited the highest mean scores for hostility Conclusions: These results offer vital support for the need to identify hig h-risk patients through psychosocial screening in order to provide early in tervention. To simply perceive cancer patients as a homogeneous group is an erroneous assumption. Failure to detect and treat elevated levels of distr ess jeopardizes the outcomes of cancer therapies, decreases patients' quali ty of life, and increases health care costs. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.