The use of a patient-reported outcome questionnaire to assess cancer survivorship concerns and psychosocial outcomes among recent survivors

Survivor distress is well represented in the literature, but less is known about survivors’ concerns and how these relate to adaptation. Using a newly designed Survivorship Concern Scale, we examined concerns and their relationship to psychosocial adaptation among recent breast cancer (BC) survivors.

One hundred forty-three stage 0–III BC survivors completed an online assessment including the Survivorship Concern Scale (0–3 scale; alpha = 0.91), unmet needs, quality of life (QoL), and anxiety and depressive symptoms within 1 year of end of treatment.

Participants were predominately white (76%), middle-aged (51 years), married (70%), and college educated (79%). Eighty-two percent were stage I or II at diagnosis. Mean degree of survivorship concern was moderate (M = 1.75, SD = 0.70) though variable (range = 0.12–3.00). Survivorship concerns were not significantly related to disease, treatment, or demographic variables except income (p = 0.02). Degree of survivorship concern was significantly associated with all indices of psychosocial adaptation: unmet need (r = 0.50), physical and mental QoL (r = −0.32 and r = −0.32, respectively), depressive symptoms (r = 0.21), and anxiety symptoms (r = 0.51; all p < 0.001). Binary logistic regression suggested that each one-point increase in degree of average concern increased the odds for elevated depressive symptoms by 2.83 (p = 0.03) and increased the odds of elevated anxiety symptoms by 3.69 (p < 0.001).

Survivorship concerns in the year following treatment are moderate but variable. Concerns are associated with QoL, unmet need, and psychosocial adaptation. Adequately addressing concerns may be a way to improve psychosocial outcomes early in the survivorship trajectory.