The Edmonton Symptom Assessment System, a proposed tool for distress screening in cancer patients: development and refinement

Abstract

Overall, our findings support consideration of the ESAS and its successor, the ESAS-r, for use in distress screening in cancer patients. Areas for future research will be presented. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Improvement in symptom burden within one day after palliative care consultation in a cohort of gynecologic oncology inpatients

“…The ESAS is a tool designed to evaluate symptoms in patients receiving palliative care [22]. It has been validated in cancer patients and has been used in prior studies of symptom burden in gynecologic oncology patients [2,5,[23][24][25]. Our scale is compressed from the original eleven point scale (0-10) to a four point scale (0-3) representing symptom intensity of none, mild, moderate or severe.…”

Care Management by Oncology Nurses To Address Palliative Care Needs: A Pilot Trial To Assess Feasibility, Acceptability, and Perceived Effectiveness of the CONNECT Intervention

“…The Edmonton Symptom Assessment Scale (ESAS) 48,49 and Distress Thermometer 50 are administered to patients before every visit and used to guide visit content. Visits are guided by an intervention manual that includes (1) visit-specific checklists of key content and goals, (2) communication pearls, (3) common pitfalls, and (4) sample scripts.…”

“…20,61,62 The ESAS is a nine-item patient-rated symptom scale developed and validated in cancer patients receiving palliative care (range 0-900, with higher scores indicating greater symptom intensity). 48,49 The HADS is a widely used 14-item instrument that measures symptoms of anxiety and depression. 63 Scores of ‡ 8 on either domain indicate significant symptoms of depression or anxiety with good sensitivity and specificity.…”

The Edmonton Symptom Assessment System: Poor performance as screener for major depression in patients with incurable cancer

“…Inference from the current study is limited to the ESAS version applied in the study. Regarding symptom time frame, the patients were asked about depression "just now"; the term "Depression" was used, not "Depression = feeling sad" as in the ESAS revised version (64).…”