Symptom Clusters, Physical Activity, and Quality of Life: A Latent Class Analysis of Children During Maintenance Therapy for Leukemia.
Mary C Hooke, Michelle A Mathiason, Audrey Blommer and 7 others
PMID 34387237WHAT IT FOUND
Children with high fatigue, sleep, and mood symptoms during leukemia maintenance did not improve during treatment.
Active children had better sleep, but activity did not reduce fatigue or mood symptoms.
Key findings
01Children grouped as high symptom at the start of maintenance had worse fatigue, sleep disturbance, and depressive symptoms, and these differences remained at the end of therapy.
02Children classified as normally active at the start of maintenance had significantly better sleep at the end than children classified as low activity, but activity did not influence fatigue or depression.
03Low symptom children who were normally active at the start had significantly better quality of life at the end of treatment than normally active high symptom children and inactive high symptom children.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The study included 42 children, so findings about high symptom children who were active or inactive were based on small groups. It was not a randomized trial or an exercise intervention, so it cannot show that increasing physical activity caused better sleep or quality of life. Depressive symptoms were measured with different scales at the beginning and end of maintenance, so change in depression is harder to interpret. Only 7% of participants were adolescents, so the findings may not apply well to older teens. Measurements were taken only at the beginning and end of maintenance, not at repeated points during maintenance.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that physical activity reduces fatigue or depression. The study found no significant effect of activity on those symptoms, and it did not test an exercise program. The combined symptom and activity group results were also based on small high symptom groups.