London
\nCancer patients are more worried about how their illness may affect their partner or family than the physical side effects of chemotherapy, scientists say.<\/p>\n
Researchers at Huyssens-Stiftung in Germany have found that socio-psychological factors have become more significant for patients suffering from cancer.<\/p>\n
They found that side effects like nausea and vomiting are no longer a major problem for patients – this can be explained by the fact that modern medication against these symptoms is very effective.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, hair loss is still a persistent, unsolved issue that particularly affects patients at the start of their treatment, researchers said.<\/p>\n
“As time passes and patients get used to this, however, their concerns evolve and other side effects become more significant,” said Beyhan Ataseven from Huyssens-Stiftung.<\/p>\n
Looking at patients’ perceptions over the entire course of their chemotherapy, the most difficult side effects they deal with are sleep disorders – which become increasingly important over time – and anxiety about the effects of their illness on their partner or family, which remains a top issue throughout, Ataseven said.<\/p>\n
“As doctors, these findings might lead us to consider possible improvements to the accompanying therapies we offer our patients: For instance, sleeping tablets were not until now a part of the routine regimen.<\/p>\n
“There is also a clear case for providing stronger psychological support to address patients’ social anxieties and family-related concerns, Ataseven added.<\/p>\n
The team focused exclusively on breast and ovarian cancer patients and added a longitudinal analysis by carrying out three separate interviews before, during and at the end of their chemotherapy.<\/p>\n
At each interview, 141 patients scheduled for or undergoing chemotherapy were presented with two groups of cards respectively featuring physical and non-physical side effects.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
London Cancer patients are more worried about how their illness may affect their partner or family than the physical side effects of chemotherapy, scientists say. Researchers at Huyssens-Stiftung in Germany have found that socio-psychological factors have become more significant for patients suffering from cancer. They found that side effects like nausea and vomiting are no […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4558,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[239],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4557"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4559,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4557\/revisions\/4559"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}