Abstract
OBJECTIVES: To examine the impact of diabetes on the symptoms of women with breast cancer. SAMPLE & SETTING: 121 women with breast cancer who self-identified as having a diabetes diagnosis and 1,006 women with breast cancer without diabetes from 97 sites across the United States. METHODS & VARIABLES: Symptom scores for depression, anxiety, sexual function, peripheral neuropathy, physical function, attention function, sleep disturbance, and fatigue were compared between women with breast cancer and diabetes and women with breast cancer without diabetes, controlling for age, education, income, marital status, and body mass index (BMI). RESULTS: Women with breast cancer and diabetes who were three to eight years postdiagnosis reported poorer physical and attention function, more sleep disturbance, and greater fatigue than women with breast cancer without diabetes. Age, education, income, and BMI were independent predictors of symptoms experienced by women with breast cancer. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING: Oncology nurses can assess and monitor women with breast cancer and diabetes for increased post-Treatment sequelae. If problematic symptoms are identified, implementing treatment plans can decrease symptom burden and increase quality of life for women with breast cancer and diabetes.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 473-484 |
| Number of pages | 12 |
| Journal | Oncology nursing forum |
| Volume | 46 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2019 |
Funding
are assistant professors, and Wambui G. Gathirua-Mwangi, PhD, MPH, and Eric Vachon, PhD, RN, are postdoctoral fellows, all in the School of Nursing, Patrick Monahan, PhD, is a professor in the School of Medicine and the Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health, Julie Otte, PhD, RN, OCN®, is an associate professor in the School of Nursing, and Timothy E. Stump, MA, is a biostatistician in the School of Medicine, all at Indiana University in Indianapolis; David Cella, PhD, is chair of the Department of Medical Social Sciences at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL; and Victoria Champion, PhD, RN, FAAN, is a distinguished professor in the School of Nursing at Indiana University in Indianapolis. Storey can be reached at [email protected], with copy to [email protected]. (Submitted November 2018. Accepted January 28, 2019.) This study was coordinated by the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group–American College of Radiology Imaging Network Cancer Research Group (Peter J. O’Dwyer, MD, and Mitchell D. Schnall, MD, PhD, group co-chairs) and funded by grants (CA189828, CA180795) from the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health. Mention of specific products and opinions related to those products do not indicate or imply endorsement by the Oncology Nursing Society.
Keywords
- breast cancer survivors
- diabetes
- quality of life
- symptom burden
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Oncology(nursing)
