Abstract
Purpose: Recommendations have been made for distress screening for all newly diagnosed cancer patients at their initial consult and along the cancer continuum. This review aims to synthesize the literature presenting distress trajectories of people living with cancer by describing distress trajectories by cancer site, assessment in the cancer continuum, by sex, and by instruments used.
Methods: A systematic review identified 5,792 quantitative studies that included distress trajectories associated with people living with cancer. Databases searched included Ovid-Medline, Scopus, PubMed, Web of Science, JSTOR, ScienceDirect, Wiley Interscience, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), and PsycINFO. Data from 20 studies were extracted and summarized.
Results: Among the 20 studies, the five trajectory types described are low remaining low, low worsening to clinically high, recovery (low to high and back down to low), clinically high improving to low, and clinically high remaining clinically high. Of the 1,625 people living with cancer, 16% (262 people living with cancer) had trajectories with distress measuring high on their final outcome measure. Only 9 out of 20 studies described the distress trajectory over the full cancer continuum, from diagnosis through treatment and into follow-up care.
Conclusion: To advance current knowledge on ideal intervention times for clinicians in efficiently addressing distress among people living with cancer, distress measures collected throughout the cancer continuum for individual cancers are needed.