Symptom Clusters in Survivorship and Their Impact on Ability to Work among Cancer Survivors

Cancer survivors often experience a range of symptoms after treatment which can impact their quality of life. Symptoms may cluster or co-occur. We aimed to investigate how symptoms and symptom clusters impact the ability to work among cancer survivors.

We used symptom severity data and ability to work data routinely collected from cancer survivors attending a survivorship clinic after primary treatment with curative intent. We defined symptom clusters using single linkage and a threshold on the rescaled distances of <10. We then conducted a logistic regression to examine how symptoms and symptom clusters were related to the ability to work.

We analysed data from 561 cancer survivors, mean age 58 years and 1.5 years post diagnosis, with mixed diagnoses including breast (40.5%), colorectal (32.3%), and haematological cancers (15.3%). Limitations to work ability were reported by 34.9% of participants. Survivors experiencing pain, emotional, and cognitive symptom clusters were 14-17% more likely to report limitations in their ability to work. Older survivors and those with a higher stage disease were more likely to report limitations in their ability to work.

A better understanding and management of symptom severity and symptom clusters may help the sizable proportion of cancer survivors experiencing symptoms to participate in work after treatment.