A Preliminary Study Of Fatigue And Its Factors In Breast Cancer Patients During Chemotherapy

Background: Breast cancer is one of the common malignancy of women, and it is a serious disease threat to women's lives. The incidence of female breast cancer accounts for the top in the United States and Europe. Although China stage a relatively low breast cancer incidence area, the incidence is rising year on year. With the transference of medical model from the biomedical model to the bio-psycho-social model,the quality of breast cancer patients has been increasingly and wide spreadly concemed.Cancer -related fatigue(CRF) is one of the most common side effects of breast cancer patients receiving chemotherapy, can not be relieved by rest or sleep and impacts on quality of life badly. CRF and associated factors have not been studied pretty well in our county.Objective: To investigate the prevalence of fatigue in breast cancer patients receiving chemotherapy and explore factors related to fatigue in breast cancer patients receiving chemotherapy. This study will provide the theoretical support and the practical guidance for clinical care。Methods: Targets were 68 breast cancer patients who willing to participate and undergoing chemotherapy in the oncology department of the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University between September 2007 and September 2008. The Fatigue Symptom Inventory FSI were used to evaluate the level of quality of fatigue. And register their general situation, disease and treatment related information. Calculating the data by SPSS11.5 to explore factors related to CRF in breast cancer patients receiving chemotherapy。Results:There are 68 patients completed all the relevant data collection. Investigations revealed that 62% of patients endure fatigue the week before chemotherapy. all patients endure varying degrees of fatigue in the first week since chemotherapy, and the incidence of moderate or severe fatigue was 54%. To the third week since chemotherapy it is still 73% of the patients had symptoms of fatigue.By multiple linar regression analysised, the most lever of fatigue was associated with pain(P=0.003),course of disease(P=0.0429),surgical treatment(P=0.0136),whether or anemia (P=0.0261) as well as the number of previous chemotherapy(P=0.0004); the avrerge lever of fatigue was associated with pain(P=0.0117), duration(P=0.0015),number of previous chemotherapy P=0.0092), and whether the chemotherapy regimen containing doxorubicin, and whether the palliative chemotherapy).the number of chemotherapy (P= 0.0092),pain (P=0.0117),course of disease(P=0.0015).the duration of fatigue was associated with the number of chemotherapy(P<0.001),pain(P=0.0751),course of disease (P<0.0001) and whether t palliative chemotherapy (P=0.0713).Conclusion:Breast cancer patients endure a high incidence of fatigue. There were some factors that could affect cancer-related fatigue such as pain, course of disease, the number of chemotherapy, anaemia. Recommends health care workers should focus on the main factors to intervene so as to reduce cancer-related fatigue in patients with level.