Systematic screening of distress: Portraits and cross-examination of the various stakeholders’ perceptions, clinical perspectives, and research—Part 2

In our study’s first phase, which dealt with the screening of distress in breast or hematological cancer patients and was the topic of Part 1 of this article (Tremblay et al., 2017), we painted a portrait of the distress of these two groups of participants. We highlighted that although nearly 34% (33.9%) of our sample (N=532 participants) reached a clinical score of 5 or more on the Distress Thermometer (DT), only a low percentage (22.7%) wished to receive help with problems expressed in the screening process. This somewhat low percentage dropped further at Time 2 (14.7%). This DT score justified a more targeted assessment of the distress. This was also the case for the following results: slightly over 1 in 4 patients (26.6%) displayed an Edmonton Symptom Assessment System (ESAS) score superior or equal to 5 for anxiety at Time 1, and 18.4% did at Time 2. For depression, 9.4% of patients scored higher or equal to 5 at Time 1, and 9.5% did at Time 2. These situations should prompt further exploration, generally by a psycho-oncologist