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. 2021 Nov;30(11):1801-1835.
doi: 10.1002/pon.5753. Epub 2021 Jul 6.

Psychological problems among cancer patients in relation to healthcare and societal costs: A systematic review

Florie E Van Beek  1 , Lonneke M A Wijnhoven  2 , Karen Holtmaat  1 , José A E Custers  2 , Judith B Prins  2 , Irma M Verdonck-de Leeuw  1   3   4 , Femke Jansen  3   4
Affiliations

Psychological problems among cancer patients in relation to healthcare and societal costs: A systematic review

Florie E Van Beek et al. Psychooncology. 2021 Nov.

Abstract

Objective: This study systematically reviewed the association of psychological problems among cancer patients with healthcare and societal resource use and costs.

Methods: PubMed, PsycINFO, and Embase were searched (until 31 January 2021) for studies on psychological symptoms (anxiety, depression, distress, fear of recurrence) or psychiatric disorders (anxiety, depression, adjustment) and healthcare use (e.g., mental, inpatient healthcare), economic losses by patients and family, economic losses in other sectors (e.g., absence from work), and costs. The search, data extraction, and quality assessment were performed by two authors.

Results: Of the 4157 identified records, 49 articles were included (psychological symptoms (n = 34), psychiatric disorders (n = 14), both (n = 1)) which focused on healthcare use (n = 36), economic losses by patients and family (n = 5), economic losses in other sectors (n = 8) and/or costs (n = 13). In total, for 12 of the 94 associations strong evidence was found. Psychological symptoms and psychiatric disorders were positively associated with increased healthcare use (mental, primary, inpatient, outpatient healthcare), losses in other sectors (absence from work), and costs (inpatient, outpatient, total healthcare costs). Moderate evidence was found for a positive association between (any) psychiatric disorder and depression disorder with inpatient healthcare and medication use, respectively.

Conclusions: Psychological problems in cancer patients are associated with increased healthcare use, healthcare costs and economic losses. Further research is needed on psychological problems in relation to understudied healthcare use or costs categories, productivity losses, and informal care costs.

Keywords: cancer; costs; healthcare use; oncology; psychiatric disorder; psychological symptom; work productivity.

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Conflict of interest statement

All authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Categorization of healthcare and societal resource use and costs. aFor the subcategorization, we were dependent on the description provided in the individual studies. Healthcare resource utilization was only categorized in the subcategory “oncology‐related healthcare” if this matched the definition used in the corresponding article. In all the other cases, the investigated association was categorized in a broader subcategory, for example, “outpatient care”
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
PRISMA flow diagram
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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