Solano Joao Paulo, Gomes Barbara, Higginson Irene J
Division of Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine, Federal University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.
J Pain Symptom Manage. 2006 Jan;31(1):58-69. doi: 10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2005.06.007.
Little attention has been paid to the symptom management needs of patients with life-threatening diseases other than cancer. In this study, we aimed to determine to what extent patients with progressive chronic diseases have similar symptom profiles. A systematic search of medical databases (MEDLINE, EMBASE, and PsycINFO) and textbooks identified 64 original studies reporting the prevalence of 11 common symptoms among end-stage patients with cancer, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or renal disease. Analyzing the data in a comparative table (a grid), we found that the prevalence of the 11 symptoms was often widely but homogeneously spread across the five diseases. Three symptoms-pain, breathlessness, and fatigue-were found among more than 50% of patients, for all five diseases. There appears to be a common pathway toward death for malignant and nonmalignant diseases. The designs of symptom prevalence studies need to be improved because of methodological disparities in symptom assessment and designs.
除癌症外，危及生命疾病患者的症状管理需求很少受到关注。在本研究中，我们旨在确定进展性慢性病患者在多大程度上具有相似的症状特征。对医学数据库（MEDLINE、EMBASE和PsycINFO）和教科书进行系统检索后，我们确定了64项原始研究，这些研究报告了癌症、获得性免疫缺陷综合征（AIDS）、心脏病、慢性阻塞性肺疾病或肾病终末期患者中11种常见症状的患病率。通过在比较表（网格）中分析数据，我们发现这11种症状的患病率在这五种疾病中通常分布广泛但较为均匀。在所有五种疾病中，超过50%的患者存在三种症状——疼痛、呼吸困难和疲劳。恶性和非恶性疾病似乎存在共同的死亡途径。由于症状评估和研究设计方面的方法差异，症状患病率研究的设计需要改进。
