Emotional Distress Prior to Chemoradiation for Rectal or Anal Cancer

Background/aim: Anticipation of chemoradiation has been reported to cause psychosocial distress in patients with rectal cancer. This study provides additional data regarding prevalence and risk factors of emotional distress in patients who received chemoradiation for rectal or anal cancer.

Patients and methods: Sixty-four patients were analyzed for emotional distress utilizing 12 factors. When applying the Bonferroni correction, p-values <0.0042 were considered significant.

Results: Worry, fears, sadness, depression, nervousness, and loss of interest in usual activities were reported by 31%, 47%, 33%, 11%, 47%, and 19% of patients, respectively. More physical problems were associated with fears (p=0.0030) and loss of interest (p=0.0021). Strong trends were observed for associations between female sex and sadness (p=0.0098) and between lower performance score and worry (p=0.0068) or fears (p=0.0064).

Conclusion: A considerable proportion of patients reported emotional distress prior to chemoradiation for rectal or anal cancer. High-risk patients may benefit from early psycho-oncological support.