Self-care related to the performance of occupational roles in patients under antineoplastic chemotherapy treatment.
Leidiane Mota De Oliveira Chagas, Fabiano Henrique Oliveira Sabino, Maria Helena Barbosa and 3 others
PMID 34037118WHAT IT FOUND
Patients with more interference from chemotherapy symptoms in daily life had higher self-care scores.
Valuing the role of friend and volunteer also predicted better self-care. Worker and domestic roles showed the greatest performance loss.
Key findings
01Greater interference of symptoms in life activities was associated with higher self-care capacity.
02The importance attributed to the role of friend was a significant predictor of self-care.
03Worker and domestic service roles showed the greatest loss of performance in the present compared to the past.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The cross-sectional design prevents establishing causality between symptom interference, role importance, and self-care capacity. The sample size of 79 patients and the diversity of cancer types limited the ability to perform more granular statistical analyses. The counter-intuitive finding that greater symptom interference was associated with better self-care may reflect reverse causality or a coping mechanism not captured by the study design. The study was conducted in a single center in Brazil, which may limit generalizability to other healthcare systems or populations.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that higher self-care scores in patients with greater symptom interference mean the symptoms are helping them. This association may reflect patients mobilizing their self-care efforts in response to perceived threats to their independence, rather than a beneficial effect of the symptoms themselves.