Psychological Resilience, Symptom Burden, and Supportive Care Needs in Chemotherapy Patients: A Path Analysis

While chemotherapy contributes to the survival of cancer patients, it also leads to various psychological and physiological problems, increasing the need for supportive care. This study aimed to determine the relationship between psychological resilience, chemotherapy symptoms, and supportive care needs in patients undergoing chemotherapy.

This is a descriptive and correlational study. Data were collected using the Descriptive Characteristics Form, the Psychological Resilience Scale (PRS), the Nightingale Symptom Assessment Scale (N-SAS), and the Supportive Care Needs Scale-Short Form (SCNS-SF). Data collection was conducted face-to-face in the chemotherapy unit of a university hospital. Analyses were performed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) 29.0 and Hayes Process Macro V3.4.

A total of 113 patients participated in the study. The mean age of the participants was 56.91 years (SD = 10.917), the mean PRS score was 106.59 (SD = 5.194), the mean N-SAS score was 2.14 (SD = 0.423), and the mean SCNS-SF score was 72.58 (SD = 9.250). The effect of PRS on N-SAS was primarily direct and statistically significant (β = -0.019; p = 0.011). However, the effect of PDÖ on SCNS-SF was not statistically significant (β = 0.017; p = 0.752). Participants generally demonstrated high levels of psychological resilience, a low impact of symptoms on quality of life, and moderate levels of supportive care needs.

The psychological resilience levels of the patients were generally high. The impact of symptoms on patients' quality of life was low. While an increase in symptoms negatively affected psychological resilience, the effect of psychological resilience on supportive care needs was limited and indirect.