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. 2023 Mar 7;15(6):1637.
doi: 10.3390/cancers15061637.

Associations of Age and Sex with the Efficacy of Inpatient Cancer Rehabilitation: Results from a Longitudinal Observational Study Using Electronic Patient-Reported Outcomes

Jens Lehmann  1 , David Riedl  1   2 , Alain Nickels  3   4 , Gabriele Sanio  3   4 , Marco Hassler  5 , Gerhard Rumpold  1   6 , Bernhard Holzner  6   7 , Thomas Licht  2   3   4
Affiliations

Associations of Age and Sex with the Efficacy of Inpatient Cancer Rehabilitation: Results from a Longitudinal Observational Study Using Electronic Patient-Reported Outcomes

Jens Lehmann et al. Cancers (Basel). .

Abstract

Cancer rehabilitation is thought to increase the quality of life (QOL) and functioning of cancer survivors. It remains, however, uncertain whether subgroups benefit equally from rehabilitation. We wished to investigate the outcomes of multimodal rehabilitation according to age, sex and functioning. Patients of an Austrian rehabilitation center routinely completed the EORTC QLQ-C30 and the hospital anxiety and depression scale (HADS) questionnaires prior to (T1), and after rehabilitation (T2). To compare the outcomes between age groups (i.e., <40, 41-69, and ≥70 years), sex, and the Norton scale risk status, repeated measures of analyses of variance were calculated. A total of 5567 patients with an average age of 60.7 years were included, of which 62.7% were female. With T1 indicating the cancer survivors' needs, older and high-risk patients reported lower functioning (all p < 0.001) and a higher symptom burden for most scales (all p < 0.05) before rehabilitation. Regardless of age, sex or risk status, the patients showed at a least small to medium improvement during rehabilitation for anxiety, depression, and most functioning and symptom scales. Some between-group differences were observed, none of which being of a relevant effect size as determined with the Cohen's d. In conclusion, QOL is improved by rehabilitation in all patients groups, independently from age, sex, or the risk status.

Keywords: adolescents and young adults (AYA); cancer survivor; frailty; health-related quality of life; physical medicine; psycho-oncology.

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Conflict of interest statement

Thomas Licht, Alain Nickels and Gabriele Sanio are employed at the Oncological Rehabilitation Center St. Veit im Pongau. Gerhard Rumpold and Bernhard Holzner own the intellectual property for the software CHES. Jens Lehmann reports consultancy for Evaluation Software Development GmbH (ESD), the company developing the software CHES. All other authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Mean HADS anxiety and depression scores (a,b), stratified by age groups, compared to data from the general population [62].
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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