Factors associated with distinct prognostic-awareness-transition patterns over cancer patients' last 6 months of life.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Cancer patients may develop prognostic awareness (PA) heterogeneously, but predictors of PA-transition patterns have never been studied. We aimed to identify transition patterns of PA and their associated factors during cancer patients' last 6 months.

Methods

For this secondary-analysis study, PA was assessed among 334 cancer patients when they were first diagnosed as terminally ill and monthly till they died. PA was categorized into four states: (a) unknown and not wanting to know; (b) unknown but wanting to know; (c) inaccurate awareness; and (d) accurate awareness. The first and last PA states estimated by hidden Markov modeling were examined to identify their change patterns. Factors associated with distinct PA-transition patterns were determined by multinomia

SUBMITTER: Chen CH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8607263 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature