ESTRO 2024 - Abstract Book

S2877

Interdiscplinary - Other

ESTRO 2024

Kragujevac, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Pharmacology Department, Kragujevac, Serbia. 4 University Clinical Centre Kragujevac, Clinical Pharmacology Department, Kragujevac, Serbia. 5 University of Kragujevac, Faculty of Medical Sciences, ., Kragujevac, Serbia

Purpose/Objective:

Radiotherapy is one of the most common treatment modalities used in up to 75% of oncology patients. For curative purposes, the treatment is carried out over several weeks, which increases the number of hospital visits, disrupts the patients' every-day life habits and increases anxiety and fear. A study conducted by Živković et al., the primary goal of which was to create and validate a new questionnaire for assessing fear of radiotherapy in oncology patients (A questionnaire for assessing fear of radiotherapy in oncology patients - QAFRT), showed that patients' fear of radiotherapy consists of several segments. During the second half of the last decade we have witnessed the progressive development of radiation oncology centers in developing countries, reflected in the improvement of technical equipment, level of staff education and the emergence of new strategies for patient in treatment monitoring. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has contributed to the development of fear and uncertainty among oncology patients, regardless of evident progress in this area of medicine. The aim of the study was to perform a comparative analysis of radiotherapy anxiety level in patients treated in 2016 and 2022, i.e. before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as to examine whether the advancement of radiotherapy centers leads to any reduction in the patient's fear in emergency situations.

Material/Methods:

Two cross-sectional studies, conducted at the Center for Radiation Oncology, University Clinical Center Kragujevac, based on the analysis of the intensity of anxiety and fear of radiotherapy in oncology patients with assistance QAFRT. The first part of the research integrated all data of research interest obtained from patients treated with radiotherapy during 2016 and second cross-sectional study included all patients treated during 2022 during the COVID 19 pandemic.

Results:

The first cross-sectional study, had 154 participants who had been treated with radiotherapy, while in the second study there were 159 patients. The patients treated in 2016 were slightly older (64.46 ± 10.04 years) compared to patients treated in 2022 (58.86 ± 13.86 years). The second study shows a significant reduction in patients living in a family (57.9%, compared to 71.4%) and an equal number of patients live in the rural and urban areas. Charlson comorbidity score values did not differ significantly between the studies. During COVID 19, a greater number of patients were treated with chemotherapy (78.6% compared to 53.2%), and significantly fewer with surgery than in 2016 (47.8% compared to 65.6%). Depending on the radiotherapy intention, there was no significant difference in the frequency of application of palliative or curative radiotherapy. In the first study, the only applied radiotherapy technique was the 2D-conventional technique, while in 2022 this technique was used in 17.6% of patients, and high-precision techniques (3D-CRT, IMRT and VMAT) dominated. In the second study, 88.1% of patients believed that they had received an adequate explanation of the treatment regimen, pre-therapeutic preparation and potential acute and chronic complications, while in 2016, 13% of patients claimed the same. Patients with religious convictions returned high response scores to QAFRT in 2016 (p=0.048), as did the patients who received EBRT and brachytherapy (p=0.036), which was also confirmed in the second study (p=0.002). In addition, in 2022, women (p=0.000), older patients (p=0.027) and patients with higher values on the Charlson comorbidity score (p=0.042) showed a higher degree of anxiety. The results indicate that the patients treated in 2022 had higher stages of disease, and significantly higher response scores on the QAFRT. Additional analysis showed an exceptional convergent correlation between the response scores on the questions in the years when the studies were conducted, but no correlation was confirmed for scores of scales from 2016 and 2022.