Latent Transition Analysis of the Symptom Experience of Cancer Patients Undergoing Chemotherapy.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Symptom clusters reflect the person's experience of multiple cooccurring symptoms. Although a variety of statistical methods are available to address the clustering of symptoms, latent transition analysis (LTA) characterizes patient membership in classes defined by the symptom experience and captures changes in class membership over time.

Objectives

The purposes of this article are to demonstrate the application of LTA to cancer symptom data and to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of LTA relative to other methods of managing and interpreting data on multiple symptoms.

Methods

Data from a total of 495 adult cancer patients who participated in randomized clinical trials of two symptom management interventions were analyzed. Eight cancer- and treatment

SUBMITTER: Jeon S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6399048 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Mar/Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature