Treatment type and symptom severity among oncology patients by self-report

Oncology patients receiving chemotherapy (n = 109) and radiation therapy RT (n = 161) reported symptom concerns and severity on the 25-item therapy-re lated symptom checklist (TRSC). Secondary analysis of the self-reports of t he two treatment groups was done using the Mann-Whitney U Test. Thirteen sy mptoms differed significantly between the two groups. RT patients reported significantly greater severity of five symptoms (p<0.05) during therapy. Ch emotherapy patients reported significantly greater severity of eight differ ent symptoms. The other 14 items showed a heterogeneous pattern of self-rep orted patient symptom concerns. The TRSC appears to be a clinically useful self-report checklist that captures the more important symptom concerns of both RT and chemotherapy patients. Earlier efforts to develop this checklis t are reviewed briefly. <(c)> 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserve d.