Many people with advanced cancer experience multiple severe symptoms as their disease progresses such as pain, sleep problems, fatigue, and depression. These symptoms can be a result of the cancer itself, cancer treatment or an interaction of the two. The studies reported in this dissertation uses the patients' own responses to survey questions to describe the multiple dimensions of the symptom experience; the factors that predict the total number of symptoms; as well as the optimal cutpoint between a low and a high number of symptoms and the between group differences in patient outcomes (i.e., depression, anxiety, quality-of-life).
At this time, very little is known about the cause or impact of multiple symptoms in patients with advanced cancer. The findings from this research have the potential to improve our understanding of the multiple dimensions of the symptom experience in patients with advanced cancer. Specifically, this work may facilitate the identification of symptoms that share a common biological mechanism. In addition, this research has the potential to lead to the identification of patients who are at higher risk for different symptom experiences and who require different symptom management interventions.