Patient-reported resilience associated with outcomes after HCT

the Oncology Nurse Advisor take:

Among long-term survivors of hematopoetic celltransplantation (HCT), patient-reported resilience is independently associated with health and psychosocial outcomes, according to a recent study published online ahead of print in Cancer.

Researchers led by Abby Rosenberg, MD, MS, of the Seattle Children’s Hospital observed 4,643 adult survivors of HCT as part of the annual Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (FHCRC) post-transplant survivorship survey from July 2013 to June 2014.

The survey included patient-reported health and functional status as well as instruments that assessed psychosocial outcomes such as the 10-item Connor-Davidson Resilience scale, the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory, and the Cancer and Treatment Distress measure. Among those patients, 1,823 (39%) responded after a single mailing and subsequent reminder letter. Median age was 59 years and 52.5% of patients were male.

The researchers found that lower patient-reported resilience was associated with chronic graft-versus-host disease of higher severity, lower performance scores, missing work for health reasons, and permanent disability.

Upon adjusting for demographic and health characteristics, lower patient-reported resilience scores showed higher odds of having psychological distress as well as being in the lowest quartile for mental health-related quality of life.

“Future studies must determine whether interventions can bolster resilience and improve survivorship outcomes,” the authors concluded.