According to a study published in Cancer, patients with cancer who are hospitalized experience substantial physical and psychological symptoms.
Moreover, palliative care is rarely consulted for highly symptomatic patients with possibly curable cancer. Supportive care interventions should therefore target the needs of symptomatic patients, regardless of the treatment intent.
“The current study findings highlight the importance of symptom monitoring for hospitalized patients with cancer and have important clinical implications for the allocation of inpatient palliative and supportive care resources,” the authors wrote.
In this single-center study of hospitalized patients with cancer between 2014 and 2017, researchers evaluated physical symptoms using the Edmonton Symptom Assessment System and psychological distress using the Patient Health Questionnaire-4 and the Primary Care…
