Abstract 320P
Background
Patients newly diagnosed with malignancies amidst the COVID19 pandemic outbreak face the psychological double whammy of a gruesome diagnosis and a public health crisis. We conducted a cross-sectional survey to examine the association between common psychological disorders and cancer patients’ perception of COVID19’s real-life impact.
Methods
Newly diagnosed cancer patients were surveyed with a two-part questionnaire constructed by oncologists and clinical psychologists. It first explored patients’ perceptions of pandemic’s impact on cancer care resources, treatment quality, health-seeking behaviour and other concerns. The second part involved the measurement of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (abbreviated PCL-5), anxiety and depression (emotion thermometer) and intolerance to uncertainty (IUS12), where patients were assigned into high and low-risk groups accordingly. Their associations were observed and analysed using chi-square test.
Results
103 new cancer patients in Hong Kong were surveyed in May 2020. Results revealed there were more worries about the impact of COVID19 on cancer care manpower, and secondly about risk of infection during OPD waiting time, in patients of high risk group for PTSD (p= 0.011; p=0.015 respectively), anxiety (p=0.013; p=0.034), depression (p=0.017; p=0.043) and uncertainty tolerance (p=0.004; p=0.044). High IUS12 score was associated with more worry on pandemic’s impact on progress of cancer research and drug development (p=0.03). Patients of the high anxiety risk group were less likely to accept hospital’s “no visitor” policy during admission (p=0.013). High-risk group for anxiety (p=0.024) and depression (p=0.044) tend to consider the availability of media information on COVID19’s impact on cancer as inadequate. Patients of high PTSD risk group showed greater fear of being infected by family/carers (p=0.005).
Conclusions
This original survey revealed the potential value of psychometrics in understanding cancer patient’s perception of COVID19’s impact and predicting particular concerns in patients with different psychological phenotypes, allowing better-tailored pandemic time cancer care.
Clinical trial identification
Editorial acknowledgement
Legal entity responsible for the study
The authors.
Funding
Kowloon Central Cluster Research Committee Research Grant 20/21, Hospital Authority, Hong Kong, China.
Disclosure
All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.
Resources from the same session
434P - Pan-Canadian evidence-based, consensus-driven cancer treatment protocols/information for use at the point of care by medical oncologists? Is there a need?
Presenter: Kiran Virik
Session: e-Poster Display Session
435P - Hypnotics and risk of cancer: A meta-analysis of observational studies
Presenter: Tzu Rong Peng
Session: e-Poster Display Session
436P - Clinicopathological characteristics and outcomes of adolescent and young adult (AYA) melanoma: Results from an Asian perspective
Presenter: Wei Lin Goh
Session: e-Poster Display Session
437P - Long-term efficacy and toxicity outcome of adjuvant external beam radiotherapy for medullary thyroid cancer: A single institution cohort study
Presenter: Ka Man Cheung
Session: e-Poster Display Session
438P - Real-world data of relapse after adjuvant treatment (Tx) in high-risk melanoma
Presenter: Carolina Ortiz Velez
Session: e-Poster Display Session
439P - Immunohistochemical analysis of p53 and Ki-67 in glioblastoma (GBM) and their correlations with patient survival
Presenter: Paulo Luz
Session: e-Poster Display Session
440P - Blinded independent central review of oncology trials: The monitoring of readers' performance
Presenter: Hubert Beaumont
Session: e-Poster Display Session
441P - Influence of radiation therapy of patients with somatotropic pituitary adenomas depending on the age of patients
Presenter: Saodat Issaeva
Session: e-Poster Display Session
442P - Results from the registrational phase I/II ARROW trial of pralsetinib (BLU-667) in patients (pts) with advanced RET mutation-positive medullary thyroid cancer (RET+ MTC)
Presenter: Bhumsuk Keam
Session: e-Poster Display Session