Which symptom to address in psychological treatment for cancer survivors when fear of cancer recurrence, depressive symptoms, and cancer-related fatigue co-occur? Exploring the level of agreement between three systematic approaches to select the focus of treatment.

Abstract

Purpose: To investigate the extent to which three systematic approaches for prioritizing symptoms lead to similar treatment advices in cancer survivors with co-occurring fear of cancer recurrence, depressive symptoms, and/or cancer-related fatigue.

Methods: Psychological treatment advices were was based on three approaches: patient preference, symptom severity, and temporal precedence of symptoms based on ecological momentary assessments. The level of agreement was calculated according to the Kappa statistic.

Results: Overall, we found limited agreement between the three approaches. Pairwise comparison showed moderate agreement between patient preference and symptom severity. Most patients preferred treatment for fatigue. Treatment for fear of cancer recurrence was mostly indicated when based on symptom severity. Agreement between temporal precedence and the other approaches was slight. A clear treatment advice based on temporal precedence was possible in 57% of cases. In cases where it was possible, all symptoms were about equally likely to be indicated.

Conclusions: The three approaches lead to different treatment advices. Future research should determine how the approaches are related to treatment outcome. We propose to discuss the results of each approach in a shared decision-making process to make a well-informed and personalized decision with regard to which symptom to target in psychological treatment.

Implications for cancer survivors: This study contributes to the development of systematic approaches for selecting the focus of psychological treatment in cancer survivors with co-occurring symptoms by providing and comparing three different systematic approaches for prioritizing symptoms.