Symptoms of a Cancer and the side effects of treatment condition the private and professional life of cancer patients. Depending on the difficulty of living with them, patients choose whether or not to continue a professional activity, even if the majority of them would like to, according to the results of a study. study published in the medical journal Cancer.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (United States) performed an analysis using data from the Symptom Outcomes and Practice Patterns (SOAPP) study on 668 cancer patients, 35% of whom were still active. professional, full or part time, and 45% had stopped working because of their cancer.
Rearrange your schedule
The conclusions of this study reveal to us that the majority (58%) of the patients had to adapt their employment or its mode of exercise, in front of the difficulties caused by the disease.
The majority of patients indeed declared that the greatest constraint was the burden of symptoms of cancer treatments.
Patients who cope better with the side effects of treatment were better able to continue their working lives. “Patients with metastatic cancer focus much of their attention on events surrounding the diagnosis of the disease and on end-of-life issues. “, explain the authors of the study. “In the meantime, these patients live their lives from day to day. It is therefore not surprising that they want to continue their activity and this is the case for a third of them. On the other hand, efforts to better control the symptoms could allow more patients to achieve this goal. This is already the subject of future research, “the researchers conclude.
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