Managing Symptom Distress: Key Factors for Patients on Adjuvant Endocrine Therapy for Breast Cancer

Patients with breast cancer taking adjuvant endocrine therapy (AET) experience significant symptoms impacting mood, quality of life (QOL), and AET adherence and satisfaction.

The aim of this study was to examine the extent to which coping ability and self-efficacy for symptom management moderate the relationships between patients' symptom distress and their mood, QOL, and AET adherence and satisfaction.

As part of a randomized controlled trial, participants completed baseline measures including: sociodemographics, symptom distress (breast cancer prevention trial symptom checklist), coping skills (measure of current status), self-efficacy (self-efficacy for managing symptoms), anxiety and depression (hospital anxiety and depression scale), QOL (functional assessment of cancer therapy - general), AET adherence (medication adherence report scale), and AET satisfaction (cancer therapy satisfaction questionnaire). We conducted moderated regression analyses to examine whether coping and self-efficacy moderated the associations of symptom distress with baseline measures.

Coping skills moderated the associations of symptom distress with depression and QOL. Among those with lower coping, higher symptom distress was associated with worse depression symptoms (p=.04) and worse QOL (p < 0.001). Self-efficacy moderated the associations of symptom distress with depression symptoms and AET adherence and satisfaction. Among those with higher self-efficacy, higher symptom distress was associated with worse depression symptoms (p < 0.001), worse AET adherence (p < 0.001), and less AET satisfaction (p = 0.01).

Coping skills may buffer the effect of AET symptom distress. Findings indicate the relationship between symptom distress and self-efficacy is more nuanced and requires further research to better understand.