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. 2022 Mar-Apr;45(2):E552-E559.
doi: 10.1097/NCC.0000000000000990.

Factors Affecting Quality of Life in Patients Receiving Autologous Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation

Lathika Mohanraj  1 , Lana Sargent, R K Elswick Jr, Amir Toor, Theresa Swift-Scanlan
Affiliations

Factors Affecting Quality of Life in Patients Receiving Autologous Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation

Lathika Mohanraj et al. Cancer Nurs. 2022 Mar-Apr.

Abstract

Background: Hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) is a potentially curative treatment for hematologic malignancies, with 22 000 HSCTs performed annually in the United States. However, decreased quality of life (QoL) is a frequent and concerning state reported by HSCT recipients.

Objectives: We sought to determine if measurements of frailty and cognitive impairment were associated with fatigue and QoL in adult HSCT recipients after autologous HSCT.

Methods: Using a longitudinal study design, 32 participants 18 years or older receiving autologous HSCT were recruited from a bone marrow transplant clinic. Each participant completed 2 visits: pre-HSCT and post-HSCT. At each visit, participants completed assessment tools to measure frailty, cognitive impairment, fatigue, and QoL (assesses physical, social/family, emotional, functional, and transplant-related well-being).

Results: Participants with increased fatigue scores reported decreased QoL pre- and post-HSCT. Participants with increased frailty showed decreased functional well-being before HSCT and showed correlations with decreased physical, social, and transplant-related well-being post-HSCT. As expected, fatigued participants also showed increased frailty post-HSCT. Participants showed significant changes in physical well-being and fatigue between pre-HSCT and post-HSCT visits.

Conclusion: Data analyses from this pilot study show significant correlations between subsets of QoL with fatigue and frailty in autologous HSCT participants pre- and post-HSCT.

Implications for practice: Understanding the impact of frailty on fatigue and QoL in HSCT recipients is critical to assist nurses in initiating educational and behavioral interventions to help mitigate the effects of HSCT.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

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