The Correlation Between Radiotherapy and Patients' Fear of Cancer Recurrence: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.
Mimi Zheng, Hongwei Wan, Yu Zhu and 1 others
PMID 35184117WHAT IT FOUND
Patients who had radiotherapy reported more fear of cancer recurrence on average.
Many studies found no clear association, so radiotherapy alone does not clearly explain patients' recurrence fears.
Key findings
01The pooled estimate showed a positive link between radiotherapy and fear of cancer recurrence: r = 0.075, 95% CI 0.046 to 0.103, P = .000.
02The 35 included studies did not agree: 20 found no significant relationship, 12 found higher fear with radiotherapy, 2 found radiotherapy protective, and 1 found an initial correlation but no change over 2 years.
03In the breast cancer subgroup, the positive link was r = 0.086, 95% CI 0.027 to 0.143, P = .004.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The included studies were cross-sectional or longitudinal observational studies. The systematic review did not reach a consistent conclusion about the correlation between fear of recurrence and radiotherapy. Fourteen studies did not report reliability and validity of the fear-of-recurrence measurement tools. Only English or Chinese literature was retrieved. The subjects were mainly White and elderly cancer patients. No study was excluded for limited quality.
Declared interests
The authors reported no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that radiotherapy causes fear of cancer recurrence. The review pooled observational studies, and the result was an association, not a tested treatment effect.