Prevalence of Psychoneurological Symptoms and Symptom Clusters in Women with Breast Cancer Undergoing Treatment: Influence on Quality of Life

Abstract

The Objectives were to dentify subgroups of psychoneurological symptoms(PNS) and their relationship to different clinical variables in a sample of women with breast cancer(BC) with different type of treatment, and the pos-sible influence of these on quality of life(QoL), using a factorial principal components analysis. DataS ources: bservational, cross-sectional, non-probability study (2017-2021) at Badajoz capital (Spain). A total of 239 women with B Creceiving treatment were included. Results: 68% of women presented fatigue, 30% depressive symptoms, 37.5% anxiety, 45% insomnia, and 36% cognitive impairment. The average score obtained for pain was 28.9. All thes ymptoms were related betweent hemselves, and within the cluster of PNS. The factorial analysis showed three subgroups ofs ymptoms, which accounted for 73% of variance state and trait anxiety (PNS-1), cognitive impairment, pain and fatigue (PNS-2), and sleep disorders (PNS-3). The depressive symptoms were explained equally by PNS-1 and PNS-2. Additionally, two dimensions of QoL were found (functional-physical and cognitive-emotional).These dimen-sions correlated with the three PNS subgroups found. A relationship was found between chemotherapy treatment andPNS-3, and its negative impact on QoL.