Symptom Clusters in Children and Adolescents Receiving Cisplatin, Doxorubicin, or Ifosfamide

Abstract

Symptom clusters can have a significant impact on children's and adolescents' quality of life during cancer treatment. Early recognition and intervention for these symptoms are an important nursing role.

Teenage and Young Adult Cancer-Related Fatigue Is Prevalent, Distressing, and Neglected: It Is Time to Intervene. A Systematic Literature Review and Narrative Synthesis

“…All were published between 1992 and 2013. The 60 articles encompassed a total of 52 separate studies, as four pairs of articles 23,[29][30][31][32][33][34][35] and two groups of three articles [36][37][38][39][40][41] were publications describing different aspects of the same study's data set. It was decided to handle these as different studies, because of their distinct areas of focus.…”

“…37,53,60,74,75 The FS-A and FS-C 76 each use 14 age-appropriate questions and are validated for 13-18 and 7-12 year olds, respectively. Fatigue was reported as being more severe in adolescents than in younger children in all but one of the eight studies.…”

“…Fatigue was reported as being more severe in adolescents than in younger children in all but one of the eight studies. 53 Many of the studies that used the FS-A outcome also measured parent reports of fatigue, 37,38,47,49,59,60,74,75,77 but patient and parent scores are not directly comparable. One study did directly compare the fatigue scores of TYA patients with proxy scores from their caregivers, and found that their caregivers tended to overestimate their fatigue severity.…”

Fatigue in Child Chronic Health Conditions: A Systematic Review of Assessment Instruments

“…There was moderate evidence for the structural validity of the child and parent forms, but limited evidence for the structural validity of the adolescent form. Internal consistency and reliability data were mixed; although internal consistency statistics were good (0.70 or greater), [79][80][81]107,113 these statistics were calculated based on the total fatigue scores, despite findings of a 3-factor model for the FS-C and a 4-factor model for the FS-A. 79,80 One study revealed adequate reliability statistics for the FS-A, presenting pooled data from a series of studies, and variable agreement between parent and child were found across included studies (ICC values 0.13-0.65).…”

The relationship between fatigue and play activities of children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia receiving chemotherapy

“…21 Assessment of changes in performance could give insight to alterations in children's quality of life caused by cancer therapy and its adverse effects. 22 Despite the harm of fatigue to patients, this has not been addressed as a priority in caring patients with cancer. Nurses have not routinely assessed cancer-related fatigue in patients who undergo chemotherapy, although guides on caring patients with fatigue already exist in nursing diagnosis and procedures.…”