Psychophysical well-being profiles in patients before hematopoietic stem cell transplantation

The literature offers very few in-depth reports on the time directly before hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). Also, researchers have focused on selected aspects of psychophysical well-being and treated the sample as homogeneous. Thus, we chose to investigate distinct multidimensional well-being profiles (including anxiety, depressive symptoms, and health-related quality of life [HRQOL] domains) among patients just before HSCT, as well as profile predictors (generalized self-efficacy) and outcomes (transplant appraisal) on the basis of the transactional stress model.

Depression (CES-D), anxiety (HADS-A), HRQOL (EORTC QOL-C30), generalized self-efficacy (GSES), and transplant appraisal (single-item scale referred to threat and challenge) were measured in 290 patients (56.9% male; mean age = 47.28, SD = 13.79) after admission for HSCT (67.2% autologous). Unconditional and conditional latent profile analyses were applied.

Four latent well-being profiles were identified: well-functioning (51%, highest well-being in all aspects), dysfunctional (10%, weakest functioning in all aspects), and 2 profiles with moderate HRQOL and high (5.6%) or low (33.4%) anxiety and depressive symptoms. Generalized self-efficacy predicted profile membership, controlling for demographic and clinical variables. The highest levels were observed in the well-functioning group (P < .01). Appraisal was predicted by latent profile analyses classes: low threat in the well-functioning group (P < .001) and the highest threat and challenge in the dysfunctional group (P < .01).

The findings highlight the diverse nature of well-being in pre-HSCT patients and the manner in which transplant appraisal and generalized self-efficacy are related to different profiles of pre-HSCT multidimensional well-being, thus indicating the practical implications of the study.