Factors Associated With Self‐Report Symptom Screening Adherence in Pediatric Cancer Patients

TL;DR

The study found that factors like age, race, and cancer type affect how often pediatric cancer patients complete symptom screening assessments.

Contribution

Identifies demographic and clinical factors influencing adherence to symptom screening in pediatric cancer patients.

Findings

Older patients (11–18 years) completed more assessments than younger ones (8–10 years).

Asian and non-Hispanic patients, and those with higher family income, completed more assessments.

Patients with solid tumors completed fewer assessments compared to those with leukemia.

Abstract

Objective was to describe the association between baseline characteristics and the number of Symptom Screening in Pediatrics Tool (SSPedi) assessments completed over an 8‐week period.

This was a sub‐analysis of a cluster randomized controlled trial among 10 sites that were randomized to the intervention group. Participants were English‐ or Spanish‐speaking pediatric patients 8–18 years of age newly diagnosed with cancer. Participants were prompted to complete SSPedi three times weekly for 8 weeks. The outcome was the number of SSPedi assessments completed during the 8‐week period. Factors associated with the number of assessments were determined using mixed effects Poisson regression.

At the 10 intervention sites, 216 patients were included in the analysis. Among these participants, 129 (59.7%) were male, 112 (51.9%) were white, and 83 (38.4%) were Hispanic. The number of SSPedi assessments was significantly higher for participants 11–14 years (rate ratio (RR) 1.13, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.02–1.25) and 15–18 years (RR 1.15, 95% CI 1.04–1.27) compared to 8–10 years. Participants completed more SSPedi assessments if they were Asian compared to white (RR 1.27, 95% CI 1.10–1.46), non‐Hispanic compared to Hispanic (RR 1.15, 95% CI 1.04–1.28) and from families with a household income ≥$60,000 (RR 1.12, 95% CI 1.03–1.21). Participants completed fewer SSPedi assessments if they had solid tumors compared to leukemia (RR 0.91, 95% CI 0.84–0.99).

Adherence to three‐times weekly SSPedi varied by age, race, ethnicity, cancer diagnosis, and family income. This information may facilitate interventions to support routine symptom screening in clinical practice.

Trial Registration: NCT04614662.

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