Zdun-Ryżewska Agata E, Błażek Magdalena, Wasilewko Iwona
Medical University of Gdansk, Gdansk, Poland.
Health Psychol Rep. 2024 Jun 10;13(3):250-258. doi: 10.5114/hpr/187785. eCollection 2025.
Cancer-related fatigue is a complex syndrome and the most frequently reported complaint, especially during treatment. Sometimes a large discrepancy in patient fatigue estimations between the patients themselves and medical staff is observed. The main goal of this study was to compare fatigue from the patients' and the medical staff's perspectives.
The methods used included author-designed surveys for both the patient (questions about fatigue, intensity, causes and influence on life constructed mostly in the form of numerical rating scales) and the medical staff (the same questions on the perception of the patient's fatigue), the Chalder Fatigue Questionnaire, and the EORTC QLQ-C30. The study involved 51 cancer patients during chemotherapy treatment.
For 63% of the subjects, there was convergence of fatigue assessments made by patients and staff. Differences were visible in the staff's and patients' assessment of the intensity of fatigue experienced by the patients. The simple question "Are you fatigued (yes or no)?" corresponded to all questionnaires and scales in the case of patients. The equivalent question to the staff, "Is the patient fatigued (yes or no)?", corresponded only to the patients' current assessment of fatigue and with no other score on the questionnaire or scale that the patients filled out about their fatigue. Also, patients identified more causes of fatigue and staff overestimated the influence of chemotherapy on fatigue. Of the patient subjects, 51.4% did not know of any ways to cope with fatigue, and most of them talked about it only to family and friends.
Despite existing recommendations on the need to screen and educate patients in this matter, the issue of fatigue still requires attention.
癌症相关疲劳是一种复杂的综合征，也是最常被报告的症状，尤其是在治疗期间。有时会观察到患者自身与医护人员对患者疲劳程度的估计存在很大差异。本研究的主要目的是从患者和医护人员的角度比较疲劳情况。
所采用的方法包括作者为患者（关于疲劳、强度、原因及对生活影响的问题，大多以数字评分量表的形式构建）和医护人员（关于对患者疲劳程度认知的相同问题）设计的调查问卷、查尔德疲劳问卷以及欧洲癌症研究与治疗组织生活质量核心问卷（EORTC QLQ-C30）。该研究纳入了51名正在接受化疗的癌症患者。
对于63%的受试者，患者和医护人员对疲劳的评估结果一致。在医护人员和患者对患者所经历疲劳强度的评估方面存在差异。简单的问题“你感到疲劳吗（是或否）？”在患者方面与所有问卷和量表相对应。与医护人员对应的等效问题“患者感到疲劳吗（是或否）？”仅与患者当前对疲劳的评估相对应，与患者填写的关于其疲劳情况的问卷或量表上的其他得分均不相关。此外，患者识别出更多的疲劳原因，而医护人员高估了化疗对疲劳的影响。在患者受试者中，51.4%不知道任何应对疲劳的方法，并且他们中的大多数人只与家人和朋友谈论过此事。
尽管现有关于在此问题上对患者进行筛查和教育的建议，但疲劳问题仍需关注。
