Screening for distress in patients with brain cancer using the NCCN's rapid screening measure

Abstract

Brain cancer patients are likely to experience distress at some point during their disease trajectory. Patient-reported emotional sources of distress should be targeted and interventions should be designed to address sources of distress such as worry, sadness, and depression.

Distress and quality of life in primary high-grade brain tumor patients

“…The mean Distress Thermometer score in this population was somewhat lower than what has been reported in other studies of high-grade-glioma patients [12]. We hypothesized that the exclusion of participants who had failed to complete the FACT-Br may have led to the systematic exclusion of patients with higher levels of distress, but comparison of distress among the participants who completed the FACT-Br with those who did not, did not identify statistically significant group differences.…”

Sensitivity and Specificity of the Distress Thermometer in Screening for Distress in Long-Term Nasopharyngeal Cancer Survivors

“…The validity of the dt in cancer patients in the treatment phase has been confirmed by many studies [22][23][24][25][26][27] . However, data about the utility of the dt for individuals in the survivorship phase are limited.…”

“…The dt is therefore routinely used in numerous studies of cancer patients to obtain a self-measure of psychological distress. The ability of the dt to detect distress in cancer patients has been widely reported (sensitivity: 0.56-0.83; specificity: 0.49-0.85) [22][23][24][25][26][27] .…”

Comorbid mental disorders and psychosocial distress in patients with brain tumours and their spouses in the early treatment phase

“…Therefore, intracranial tumours rank among those cancer sites that result in the highest emotional burden for the concerning patients and carers (e. g. [6,24,28,50]). Brain tumours are often associated with high rates of stress, anxiety and/or depression (e. g. [3,27]) as well as a prominent reduction in health related quality of life (e. g. [15,24,30]). Moreover, the rate of unmet supportive care needs is high in both patients and spouses (e. g. [23).…”