肺癌病人化學治療期間疲憊型態--縱貫性研究

疲憊是肺癌病人化療期間常出現的症狀，但臨床上對它的關注並不多。多數的學者針對肺癌病人疲憊的研究多採橫斷式設計，無法看出疲憊的長期變化。本研究目的為追蹤肺癌病人由初診斷至六個化療療程結束後一個月，共八個時間點上的疲憊變化。以縱貫式研究設計，收集31位肺癌病人，使用一般疲憊量表作為利量工具。研究結果顯示：肺癌病人化療期間疲憊的長期變化，會隨著化學治療的進行，疲憊在每一次化療後會有一個短暫的偏高，並於下次化療前下降，但仍不會恢復至化療前的疲憊程度。本研究結果將有助於瞭解肺癌病人疲憊的長期變化，協助臨床護理人員改變疲憊之處理策略，進而提升照護品質。
Fatigue is a common symptom in lung cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. There has been little clinical attention paid to this issue, however. Most explorations of fatigue in lung cancer patients are cross-sectional studies, which cannot reveal long-term patterns of fatigue. The purpose of this study was to track the pattern of fatigue in lung cancer patients from initial diagnosis to one month after the completion of six cycles of chemotherapy at eight time points. The study adopted a longitudinal design. Thirty-one lung cancer patients were recruited to describe patterns of fatigue over time. The General Fatigue Scale was used to measure fatigue patterns. The results showed the long-term pattern of fatigue in lung cancer patients who underwent chemotherapy. The fatigue associated with chemotherapy peaked after treatment and remained elevated one week after each cycle of chemotherapy, and was observed to gradually diminish over time but never reached baseline values. These findings will help health care providers to understand fatigue patterns over time. They should also improve quality of care and fatigue management strategies for lung cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy.