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. 2022 Feb 21;14(4):1093.
doi: 10.3390/cancers14041093.

Mental Health and Quality of Life among Patients with Cancer during the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic: Results from the Longitudinal ONCOVID Survey Study

Emiel A De Jaeghere  1   2 , Heini Kanervo  1 , Roos Colman  3 , Wim Schrauwen  4 , Paulien West  5 , Nele Vandemaele  5 , Aglaja De Pauw  1 , Celine Jacobs  1 , Ingeborg Hilderson  1 , Michael Saerens  1 , Nora Sundahl  2   6 , Katrien Vandecasteele  2   6 , Eline Naert  1   2 , Lore Lapeire  1   2 , Vibeke Kruse  2   7 , Sylvie Rottey  1   2 , Gilbert Lemmens  8 , Hannelore G Denys  1   2
Affiliations

Mental Health and Quality of Life among Patients with Cancer during the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic: Results from the Longitudinal ONCOVID Survey Study

Emiel A De Jaeghere et al. Cancers (Basel). .

Abstract

Purpose: This longitudinal survey study aimed to investigate the self-reported outcome measures of COVID-19 peritraumatic distress, depression, anxiety, stress, quality of life (QOL), and their associated factors in a cohort of cancer patients treated at a tertiary care hospital during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.

Methods: Surveys were administered at four time points between 1 April 2020 and 18 September 2020. The surveys included the CPDI, DASS-21, and WHOQOL-BREF questionnaires.

Results: Survey response rates were high (61.0% to 79.1%). Among the 355 participants, 71.3% were female, and the median age was 62.2 years (IQR, 53.9 to 69.1). The majority (78.6%) were treated with palliative intention. An important proportion of the participants reported symptoms of COVID-19 peritraumatic distress (34.2% to 39.6%), depression (27.6% to 33.5%), anxiety (24.9% to 32.7%), and stress (11.4% to 15.7%) at any time point during the study period. We did not find clinically meaningful mental health and QOL differences during the study period, with remarkably little change in between the pandemic's first and second wave. We found no consistent correlates of mental health or QOL scores, including cancer type, therapy intention, and sociodemographic information.

Conclusion: This cohort of cancer patients showed considerable resilience against mental health and QOL deterioration during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.

Keywords: SARS-CoV-2; cancer; coronavirus 2019; mental health; pandemic; quality of life.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors report no personal disclosures. The Department of Internal Medicine and Pediatrics, Medical Oncology (Ghent University Hospital) reports non-financial support (congress and travel support) from Amgen, AstraZeneca, BMS, Eli Lilly and Company, GSK, Incyte, Pfizer, PharmaMar, MSD, Novartis, Nutrisan, Roche, Sanofi, Tesaro, and Teva, and grants from MSD and Roche, all outside the submitted work and associated institutions. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
ONCOVID study flow diagram. All the exclusion boxes in the right margin originate from the start; the numbers within these boxes should be subtracted from 390 and 417 to obtain the responders and eligible individuals at the given survey period, respectively (e.g., at T2, 291 [=390-6-20-62-11] responders out of 411 [=417-6] eligible individuals). All eligible individuals were invited to complete each survey. Questionnaires were optional; in such cases, responders may vary because of non-response.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Categorized scores for COVID-19 peritraumatic distress by survey period. Stacked bars represent the score distributions when categorized for COVID-19 peritraumatic distress severity according to the survey period. No formal hypothesis testing was performed on categorized scores. Corresponding numerical values are shown in Table S2.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Categorized scores for COVID-19 depression, anxiety, and stress by survey period. The same caption as that of Figure 2 applies here.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Mental health and quality-of-life scores by index week of 2020. (A) Peritraumatic distress, (B) depression, anxiety, and stress, (C,D) and quality of life scores plotted against the week index of 2020. T0 was situated in weeks 14 and 15, T1 in week 20, T2 in week 26, and T3 in week 38. Score data are means; error bars show the 95% confidence intervals. Corresponding numerical values for all datapoints are shown in Table S3. (E) Total number of lab-confirmed hospitalized COVID-19 patients in Belgium; vertical dotted reference lines correspond to survey periods T0 to T3, respectively; grey zone indicates the period of national lockdown (week 12 to 20). QOL: quality of life.
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