Identification of subgroups of self-reported outcomes among breast cancer patients undergoing surgery and chemotherapy: A cross-sectional study.
Feixia Ni, Tingting Cai, Tingting Zhou and 1 others
PMID 39990984WHAT IT FOUND
Among 640 breast cancer patients having surgery and chemotherapy, 48.4% fell into impaired-function subgroups, including a group with low physical, social, and cognitive function and a group with high physical but low cognitive function.
Key findings
01In the analysed sample of 640 patients, 48.4% were classified into impaired-function subgroups.
02The impaired subgroups included 20.7% with low physical, social, and cognitive function and 27.7% with high physical but low cognitive function.
03Patients aged 60 or older were more likely to be in the low physical-social-cognitive class, with an odds ratio of 3.37 compared with the high-function class.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The sample was recruited by convenience from hospital patients in China, so it may not represent other settings. All participants had both surgery and chemotherapy, so the study cannot separate the contribution of each treatment. Patients with mental disease, cognitive impairment, or trouble communicating in Mandarin were excluded, so the study may miss people with more severe baseline cognitive or communication problems. The study was cross-sectional, so it cannot show how function changed over time or whether factors caused the function classes. Function was self-reported, and the authors note that a patient's self-assessed physical capacity may not match actual physical condition. The study did not distinguish preoperative from postoperative chemotherapy and collected limited treatment details.
Declared interests
Funding came from hospital-level nursing research projects and education projects. Authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the subgroup differences as evidence that surgery or chemotherapy caused a specific functional problem. All participants had both surgery and chemotherapy, and the study was cross-sectional, so it cannot separate the contribution of each treatment or show cause.