Impact of pain, fatigue and dyspnoea on occupational performance in people with advanced cancer: A longitudinal study

Abstract

Background: Pain, fatigue and dyspnoea are symptoms commonly experienced by people with advanced cancer, which may impact on their occupational performance. It is not known whether these symptoms impact their occupational performance over time.

Objective: To examine correlation between pain, fatigue and dyspnoea and occupational performance and the impact of such symptoms on occupational performance over time in people with advanced cancer.

Material and Methods: A longitudinal study was conducted including 242 participants assessed at baseline and after six and 12 weeks. Spearman’s rank-order test and mixed linear models were performed.

Results: The correlation between pain, fatigue and dyspnoea and occupational performance at baseline spanned from trivial to moderate (Spearman’s rho: −0.004 to 0.34). Only pain had a statistically significant impact on activities of daily living (ADL) motor ability over time (p = 0.01). Participants with no pain problems had the largest decrease in ADL motor ability (−0.24 logits (95%-CI: −0.37 to −0.12)), but the observed decrease was not clinically relevant (≥−0.30).

Conclusion: Pain, fatigue and dyspnoea did not seem to highly correlate with occupational performance or impact occupational performance over time of people with advanced cancer.

Keywords:

• Cancer
• occupational performance
• longitudinal study
• occupational therapy

Acknowledgement

The authors thank the participants and the occupational therapist who were involved in the present study. Also a special thanks to statistician Sonja Wehberg from the Research Unit for General Practice for your kind help on the regression analyses.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The authors thank the TrygFonden, the Danish Cancer Society, the University of Southern Denmark, the Danish Association of Occupational Therapists, and the Region of Southern Denmark for financial support.