Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2017 Sep;18(5):497-503.
doi: 10.1016/j.cllc.2017.02.008. Epub 2017 Mar 2.

Emotional Problems, Quality of Life, and Symptom Burden in Patients With Lung Cancer

Eleshia J Morrison  1 , Paul J Novotny  2 , Jeff A Sloan  2 , Ping Yang  2 , Christi A Patten  3 , Kathryn J Ruddy  4 , Matthew M Clark  3
Affiliations

Emotional Problems, Quality of Life, and Symptom Burden in Patients With Lung Cancer

Eleshia J Morrison et al. Clin Lung Cancer. 2017 Sep.

Abstract

Objectives: Lung cancer is associated with a greater symptom burden than other cancers, yet little is known about the prevalence of emotional problems and how emotional problems may be related to the physical symptom burden and quality of life in newly diagnosed patients with lung cancer. This study aimed to identify the patient and disease characteristics of patients with lung cancer experiencing emotional problems and to examine how emotional problems relate to quality of life and symptom burden.

Patients and methods: A total of 2205 newly diagnosed patients with lung cancer completed questionnaires on emotional problems, quality of life, and symptom burden.

Results: Emotional problems at diagnosis were associated with younger age, female gender, current cigarette smoking, current employment, advanced lung cancer disease, surgical or chemotherapy treatment, and a lower Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance score. Additionally, strong associations were found between greater severity of emotional problems, lower quality of life, and greater symptom burden.

Conclusion: Certain characteristics place patients with lung cancer at greater risk for emotional problems, which are associated with a reduced quality of life and greater symptom burden. Assessment of the presence of emotional problems at the time of lung cancer diagnosis provides the opportunity to offer tailored strategies for managing negative mood, and for improving the quality of life and symptom burden management of patients with lung cancer.

Keywords: Newly diagnosed cancer; Patient/disease characteristics; Physical symptom burden; Psychological distress; QOL.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Potential Conflicts / Funding Source

The authors have no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Severity of Emotional Distress by Quality of Life Domain
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Severity of Emotional Distress by Symptom Burden
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Clark MM, Rummans TA, Atherton PJ, Cheville AL, Johnson ME, Frost MH, Miller JJ, Sloan JA, Graszer KM, Haas JG, Hanson JM, Garces YI, Piderman KM, Lapid MI, Netzel PJ, Richardson JW, Brown PD. Randomized controlled trial of maintaining quality of life during radiotherapy for advanced cancer. Cancer 2013;119:880–887. DOI: 10.1002/cncr.27776 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Sugimura H, Yang P. Long-term survivorship in lung cancer: a review. Chest 2006;129:1088–1097 - PubMed
    1. Koczywas M, Cristea M, Thomas J, McCarty C, Borneman T, Del Ferraro C, Sun V, Uman G, Ferrell B. Interdisciplinary palliative care intervention in metastatic non-small-cell lung cancer. Clin Lung Cancer 2013;14:736–744. DOI: 10.1016/j.cllc.2013.06.008 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Soni MK, Cella D, Masters GA, Burch SP, Heyes A, Silberman C. The validity and clinical utility of symptom monitoring in advanced lung cancer: a literature review. Clin Lung Cancer 2002;4:153–160 - PubMed
    1. Bultz BD, Carlson LE. Emotional distress: the sixth vital sign--future directions in cancer care. Psychooncology 2006; - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms