Distress Tolerance in Patients with Metastatic and Non-metastatic Breast Cancer: A Single-center Experience

Abstract

Background: Psychosocial difficulties occur in patients with breast cancer for many reasons including long-term treatments, organ loss, or deformity. Accordingly, we aimed to compare differences in distress tolerance levels between metastatic and non-metastatic female patients diagnosed with breast cancer and receiving chemotherapy. We also evaluated the possible relationship between distress tolerance levels and with background and clinical characteristics of the patients. 
 
 Methods: 208 eligible female patients with breast cancer who received at least three chemotherapy sessions were included in our study. According to the presence of metastasis, the patients were divided into two groups those receiving palliative (metastatic, n=126) and adjuvant (non-metastatic, n=82) chemotherapy. Besides the study-specific data form, the Distress Tolerance Scale (DTS) was applied to patients to assess distress tolerance levels.
 
 Results: The age of participants was statistically significant between the non-metastatic and metastatic patients(p