Well-being and stress vulnerability in ovarian cancer survivors during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Objective:

This study was designed to examine (1) whether ovarian cancer (OC) survivors would have greater well-being vs. elevated distress compared to community members during a universal health stressor (COVID-19) and (2) how resources and risk factors at diagnosis predicted vulnerability to a subsequent health-related stressor.

Methods:

One hundred seventeen OC survivors were recruited from two academic medical centers and compared to a community-based sample on COVID-related distress and disruption. Latent class analysis identified differentially impacted groups of survivors.

Results:

Survivors reported lower distress than community members. Predictors of higher distress included shorter-term survivorship, greater disruption, and poorer emotional well-­being (EWB) at diagnosis. Survivors were divided into high- and low-COVID-19-impact subgroups; high-impact individuals endorsed higher perceived stress and lower EWB at diagnosis.

Conclusion:

Survivors reported lower COVID-related distress than community participants. While depression at diagnosis did not predict later distress, EWB was a strong predictor of response to a novel health-related stressor.

Keywords:

• COVID-19
• distress
• ovarian cancer
• stress
• well-being

Acknowledgment

We express our appreciation Amy Weisguth and study participants for their contributions to this research.

Disclosure statement

Dr. Thaker has done consulting for Merck, Astra Zeneca, Clovis, Glaxo Smith Kline, Eisai, Mersana, Seagen, Agenus, Novocure, Immunogen, Celsion, and Aadi Pharmaceuticals, has research funding from Merck and Glaxo Smith Kline, and is a Celsion shareholder; Dr. Sood has done consulting for Merck, Glaxo Smith Kline, ImmunoGen, Onxeo, and Kiyatec, is a Biopath shareholder, and has received royalties from Top Alliance.

Authors’ contributions

Rachel Telles: Conceptualization, formal analysis, methodology, writing—original draft, writing—review/editing. Sharaf Zia: Conceptualization, methodology, writing – review/editing. Breanna Greteman: Data curation, writing – review/editing. Premal Thaker: Conceptualization, resources, investigation, supervision, writing-review/editing. Frank Penedo: Conceptualization, writing—review/editing. Mary Charlton: Resources, methodology, data curation, writing—review/editing. Michael Goodheart: Resources, investigation, writing-review/editing. Jessica Armer: Conceptualization, data curation, writing—review/editing. Alyssa Noble: Investigation, writing—review editing. Anil Sood: Methodology, writing original draft, writing-review/editing. Susan Lutgendorf: Conceptualization, funding acquisition, investigation, methodology, administration, data curation, formal analysis, writing original draft, writing-review/editing.

Data availability statement

The participants of this study did not give written consent for their data to be shared publicly, so due to the sensitive nature of the research supporting data is not available.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This project was supported in part by NIH grants CA193249, CA246540 (SL); CA109298 and CA209904 (AKS) 3P30CA086862 (George Weiner , PI), the University of Iowa Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center COVID-19 Supplement Grant 3P30CA086862-19S5, and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences of the NIH, Award number UL1TR002537 and the American Cancer Society (AKS),. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not represent the official views of the NIH.