After five years of a distress screening routine - what has happened to favor the reduction of patients’ incidence with high distress over these years? — ASN Events

After five years of a distress screening routine - what has happened to favor the reduction of patients’ incidence with high distress over these years? (#181)

Cristiane D. Bergerot 1 2 , Tereza C. C. F. Araujo 2 , Alexandre Nonino 1 , Marco M. Buso 1
  1. CETTRO - Centro de Câncer de Brasília, Brasília, DF, Brazil
  2. Psicologia, Universidade de Brasília, Brasília, DF, Brazil

Considering the NCCN guideline for distress management and the goal of psychosocial care, which is related to recognize and address the cancer diagnosis and treatment’s effects on the mental status and emotional well-being of patients, a Brazilian Cancer Center included the Distress Thermometer (DT) in the psychological evaluation routine, since 2007. The present study intend to evaluate the incidence of distress during each of these five years, in a way to understand the implication of this assessment routine on the health team behavior. A total of 500 patients, sample of 100 per year, gave their consent in participate in this study (approved by the ethics committee), answering a demographic questionnaire and the DT throughout the chemotherapy protocol. In the whole sample, there was a prevalence of female patients (66.1%). They were between 18 - 86 years (M = 55.1; SD = 15.6). Breast (25.8%), hematological (22.3%) and gastrointestinal (21.4%) were the main diagnosis. About 66.2% had late stage (III and IV) disease. We observed that the incidence of distress have reduced over the years. Specifically in the first year, 76% of patients reported high level of distress (DT ≥ 4) in the first day of the chemotherapy protocol, decreasing to 15.6% in the last day of treatment (approximately five months after the first assessment). In the fifth year, only 46% of patients were with high distress, about five months after only 5.5% remained with. Preliminary results suggest that in five years the incidence of patients with distress reduced considerably (30% less). This reduction reflect the major structural changes that have happened in the integration of the health team throughout these five year in order to attend to patient’s psychosocial needs, including this perspective as an integral part of our quality cancer care. These changes will be reported at the meeting.