Do negative emotions expressed during follow-up consultations with adolescent survivors of childhood cancer reflect late effects?

Abstract Objective To explore whether negative emotions expressed by adolescent cancer survivors during follow-up consultations were associated with potential late effects (persisting disease or treatment-related health problems). Methods We video-recorded 66 follow-up consultations between 10 pedia...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Patient education and counseling 2017-11, Vol.100 (11), p.2098-2101
Main Authors: Mellblom, Anneli V, Ruud, Ellen, Loge, Jon Håvard, Lie, Hanne C
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Clinical communication
Emotions
Female
Follow-up care
Humans
Internal Medicine
Late effects
Male
Neoplasms - psychology
Neoplasms - therapy
Nursing
Psychology, Adolescent
Referral and Consultation
Survivors - psychology
Survivorship
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Abstract Objective To explore whether negative emotions expressed by adolescent cancer survivors during follow-up consultations were associated with potential late effects (persisting disease or treatment-related health problems). Methods We video-recorded 66 follow-up consultations between 10 pediatricians and 66 adolescent survivors of leukemia, lymphoma or stem-cell transplantations. In transcripts of the recordings, we identified utterances coded as both 1) expressions of negative emotions (VR-CoDES), and 2) late effect-related discussions. Principles of thematic content analysis were used to investigate associations between the two. Results Of the 66 video-recorded consultations, 22 consultations contained 56 (49%) utterances coded as both emotional concerns and discussions of potential late effects. Negative emotions were most commonly associated with late effects such as fatigue (“I’m struggling with not having energy”), psychosocial distress (“When I touch this (scar) I become nauseous”), pain (“I’m wondering how long I am going to have this pain?”), and treatment-related effects on physical appearance (“Am I growing?”). Conclusions Negative emotions expressed by adolescent cancer survivors during follow-up consultations were frequently associated with potential late effects. These late effects were not the medically most serious ones, but reflected issues affecting the adolescents’ daily life. Practice implication Eliciting and exploring patients’ emotional concerns serve as means to obtain clinically relevant information regarding potential late effect and to provide emotional support.
ISSN:0738-3991
1873-5134
DOI:10.1016/j.pec.2017.06.008