RESEARCH ARTICLE
Common Symptoms and Distress Experienced Among Patients with Colorectal Cancer: A Qualitative part of Mixed Method Design
Sussanne Börjeson1, 2, Hans Starkhammar1, Mitra Unosson3, Carina Berterö*, 1
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2012Volume: 6
First Page: 100
Last Page: 107
Publisher ID: TONURSJ-6-100
DOI: 10.2174/1874434601206010100
PMID: 22977653
PMCID: PMC3439831
Article History:
Received Date: 16/5/2012Revision Received Date: 14/6/2012
Acceptance Date: 15/6/2012
Electronic publication date: 6/9/2012
Collection year: 2012
open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
Background :
Colorectal cancer is one of the most common types of tumour in the world. Treatment side effects, together with the tumour symptoms, can result in a ‘symptom burden’. To understand the patient’s burden during chemotherapy treatment and plan effective symptom relief there is a need for more knowledge about the experience of symptoms from the patients’ perspective.
Objectives :
The study was designed to qualitatively identify and describe the most common symptoms among patients treated for colorectal cancer, and discover whether there are barriers to reporting symptoms.
Methods :
Thirteen Swedish patients diagnosed with colorectal cancer and treated with chemotherapy were interviewed face-to-face. The interviews were audio-taped and transcribed verbatim. The transcripts were analysed by following the principles of qualitative content analysis.
Results :
Nine symptoms/forms of distress were identified. Those most frequently expressed were fatigue, changed bowel habits, and affected mental well-being, closely followed by nausea, loss of appetite and neurological problems. Of particular note were the affected mental well-being, the magnitude of the neurological problems described, the symptoms related to skin and mucous membrane problems, and the reports of distressing pain. Barriers to symptom control were only expressed by the patients in passing and very vaguely.
Conclusion :
This study confirms other reports on most common symptoms in colorectal cancer. It also highlights the early onset of symptoms and provides data on less well-studied issues that warrant further study, namely affected mental well-being, the magnitude of the neurological problems and symptoms related to the skin and mucous membranes. Nurses need to be sensitive to the patients’ need presented and not only noting symptoms/distresses they have guidelines for.
