Symptom clustering in hospitalised older palliative cancer patients: A cross-sectional study

Accurate detection of symptoms is essential in palliative care. Identification of clustering of symptom is valuable to develop target interventions. This area is largely understudied in older palliative cancer patients.

To identify symptom clustering in older palliative cancer patients, and patient groups based on the clustering of symptoms, and to evaluate the difference in functional dependence and experiencing life as not meaningful between the identified patient groups.

A cross-sectional study.

Geriatric and non-geriatric wards of seven acute care hospitals.

400 palliative cancer patients aged 65 years and older.

Symptoms were collected using a validated instrument which assesses physical, psychological, functional, social, and existential symptoms by means of a structured interview with a researcher. An agglomerative hierarchical clustering analysis was used to analyse the data.

The cluster analysis revealed five groups of symptoms: (1) urological and gastrointestinal symptoms, and their treatment complications, (2) psychological and existential symptoms, (3) pain, constipation, sleeplessness and airway problems, (4) functionality problems, and (5) fatigue-related symptoms. Three patient groups were identified: (1) symptom-free group, (2) physical discomfort group, and (3) physical and psychological discomfort group. In the last group, significant more patients had a geriatric risk profile and less of them received chemotherapy. Patients in this group were more often functionally dependent and experienced their life as not meaningful.

Five groups of symptoms were identified. Three patient groups were identified which reported different levels of functionality and experiencing life as meaningful. Healthcare professionals should be triggered to detect symptom clusters and be alert to the presence of the other symptoms in the cluster when identifying one symptom. They should also be alert to patients with a geriatric risk profile because of their higher risk of experiencing physical and psychological symptoms and the influence these symptoms have on being functionally dependent and experiencing life as not meaningful.