Relationships between Attitude Towards Treatment, Distress, and Decision Conflict among Cancer Patients Receiving Chemotherapy

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to find the factors affecting the decisional conflict of patients undergoing chemotherapy. Methods: Participants were 137 patients undergoing chemotherapy in a hospital. The Quality Quantity Questionnaire, a distress thermometer and the Decisional Conflict Scale were used to gather self-reported data. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, t-tests, ANOVA, post-hoc Scheffe’s tests, Pearson’s correlations coefficients and stepwise multiple regression. Results: The decisional conflict showed that the score for severe to high distress groups were higher than that of the mild distress group. The levels of distress and satisfaction of chemotherapy decisional conflict were positively correlated (p=.043). Decisional conflict was significantly affected by age (p=.041), the burden of treatment costs (p=.047), the support system(p=.049), the current feeling of health(p=.024), and comorbidity (p=.039). The significant predictors of decisional conflict were support system, current feeling of health, age, and the burden of treatment costs, which explained 15% of the variance. Conclusion: To improve the decisional conflict patients who are receiving chemotherapy, it is deemed to be necessary to develop an intervention program, for oncology nurses to use regarding decisional conflict over cancer treatment in consideration of the variables we have identified.