Determination of cognitive status and symptom control inindividuals receiving chemotherapy

Chemotherapy-related cognitive disorders are one of the most common symptoms in cancer patients that negatively affect their quality of life. This descriptive study was conducted to determine cognitive status and symptom control in individuals receiving neurotoxic chemotherapy. The study was conducted with 140 individuals between March 2022 and October 2022 in the outpatient chemotherapy unit and medical oncology service of a training and research hospital in Tokat. Individuals who have just started chemotherapy and received neurotoxic chemotherapy treatment were included in the study. For the study, ethical permission from the non-interventional clinical research ethics committee of a university were obtained. Data were collected using the Personal Information Form, the Edmonton Symptom Assesment Scale, and the Functional Evaluation of Cancer Treatments-Cognitive Function Scale. Individuals were evaluated at the beginning of chemotherapy treatment and after 4 cycles of chemotherapy. It was determined that the sub-dimensions of the cognitive function scale "perceived cognitive disorders", "other people's comments", "perceived cognitive skills" sub-dimension scores decreased significantly after 4 cycles of chemotherapy (p<0,001), while the "effect on quality of life" sub-dimension score did not change significantly (p˃0,05). Pain, fatigue, insomnia, nausea, loss of appetite, shortness of breath, well-being, anxiety, mucosit, skin problems, change in bowel habits symptom scores increased after 4 cycles of chemotherapy and this increase was found to be statistically significant. It was determined that there was a significant correlation between the total scores of the cognitive function scale and all the symptoms of the edmonton symptom diagnosis scale (p<0,05). In this study, it was determined that the cognitive status of individuals was adversely affected during the period of chemotherapy and the severity of symptoms contributed to the deterioration in cognitive status, and it is recommended to monitor the cognitive status of individuals receiving chemotherapy at periodic intervals.