Symptom clusters in childhood cancer survivors in Korea: A latent class analysis

To identify the occurrence of late symptom effects among childhood cancer survivors (CCS), generate subgroups using a latent class analysis and determine whether the subgroups differ in demographic and health-related characteristics and health-promoting lifestyle.

A cross-sectional survey was conducted on 130 adult CCS in Korea. The Memorial Symptom Assessment Scale was used to perform a latent class analysis based on symptom occurrence to generate subgroups.

Difficulty in concentration, lack of energy, worrying, drowsiness, irritability, pain, difficulty in sleeping, nervousness, sadness and dry mouth appeared in more than 50% of the CCS. The three symptom subgroups identified were "all high" (46.2%), "high physical moderate psych" (26.9%) and "moderate physical low psych" (26.9%). The percentage of non-smokers was the highest in the moderate physical low psych subgroup (85.7%; p = .009), and the percentage of heavy alcohol consumption was the highest in the high physical moderate psych subgroup (31.4%; p = .013). Spiritual growth scores and interpersonal relationship scores were statistically different between subgroups (F = 3.35, p = .038; F = 7.55, p = .001 respectively).

The results could guide the development of intervention programmes to strengthen spiritual growth and interpersonal relationships and facilitate further examination of the causal relationship between smoking and drinking and late symptoms of CCS.