Frequency of anxiety and depression and screening performance of the Edmonton Symptom Assessment Scale (ESAS) in a psycho‐oncology clinic.

Palliative cancer patients are faced with multiple symptoms that threaten their quality of life. To manage these symptoms, a reliable and valid way of registration is crucial. In this study, the Edmonton Symptom Assessment Scale (ESAS) has been translated, modified, and tested on content, face, criterion, construct validity, and internal consistency for patients admitted to Flemish palliative care units. These aspects are tested in a descriptive, comparative, longitudinal study based on 3 convenience samples. The first consisted of 8 palliative care experts. The second sample checked the face validity and consisted of 4 patients, 5 family members, and 5 nurses. The last sample involved 23 patients admitted to 3 Flemish palliative care units. Heedful of the “new-wave” vision on validity, the translated and altered ESAS seemed a suitable instrument for the symptom assessment of patients with cancer admitted to a palliative care unit.

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Symptom Management in Palliative Medicine

10.2310/cannabis.1095 ◽

2012 ◽

Author(s):

Kathy J Selvaggi ◽

Janet L Abrahm

Keyword(s):

Symptom Management ◽

Symptom Control ◽

Hot Flashes ◽

Symptom Assessment ◽

Symptomatic Treatment ◽

Assessment Scale ◽

Transdermal Fentanyl ◽

Memorial Symptom Assessment Scale ◽

Edmonton Symptom Assessment Scale ◽

Symptom Assessment Scale

Palliative care is an interdisciplinary specialty focused on providing comfort, communication, and support for patients, families, and professional caregivers throughout the course of a life-limiting illness. This chapter discusses assessment and treatment of symptoms and disorders that commonly contribute to patient distress during these illnesses: pain, disorders of the respiratory and gastrointestinal systems, skin disorders, hot flashes, fatigue, pruritis, insomnia, and delirium. This chapter reviews care of the imminently dying patient, discusses methods for assessing patients' symptoms, and provides two examples of valid and reliable symptom measurement systems: the Edmonton Symptom Assessment Scale and the Memorial Symptom Assessment Scale. Achieving symptom control requires the physician to assess patient suffering in all dimensions: physical, psychological, social, and spiritual. The extent of the assessment may be modified, however, based on patients’ prognosis as well as their goals and the burden and benefit of the diagnostic intervention. A 10-step protocol for terminal wean is presented. Signs that patients are entering their final days and symptom management in the last hours of a patient's life are discussed. Tables list the modified Edmonton Symptom Assessment Scale; the Memorial Symptom Assessment Scale; the DOLOPLUS-2 scale (behavioral pain assessment in the elderly); relative potencies of commonly used opioids; conversions between the transdermal fentanyl patch and morphine; symptomatic treatment for dyspnea, cough, and hiccups; pharmacologic treatment of nausea and vomiting; a progressive bowel regimen for patients receiving opioid therapy; treatments for constipation; etiology-based treatment for oral problems; risk factors for pressure ulcers; and applicable medications for physical and psychological sources of distress near the end of life. This review contains 12 tables and 120 references

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Minimal clinically important difference and Edmonton Symptom Assessment Scale

Cancer ◽

10.1002/cncr.29695 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 122 (1) ◽

pp. 158-159 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Miriam J. Johnson ◽

David C. Currow

Keyword(s):

Minimal Clinically Important Difference ◽

Symptom Assessment ◽

Assessment Scale ◽

Clinically Important Difference ◽

Edmonton Symptom Assessment Scale ◽

Symptom Assessment Scale

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Validation of the Edmonton Symptom Assessment Scale

Cancer ◽

10.1002/(sici)1097-0142(20000501)88:9<2164::aid-cncr24>3.0.co;2-5 ◽

2000 ◽

Vol 88 (9) ◽

pp. 2164-2171 ◽

Cited By ~ 524

Author(s):

Victor T. Chang ◽

Shirley S. Hwang ◽

Martin Feuerman

Keyword(s):

Symptom Assessment ◽

Assessment Scale ◽

Edmonton Symptom Assessment Scale ◽

Symptom Assessment Scale

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Preliminary validation of the Edmonton Symptom Assessment Scale – Acute Leukemia (ESAS-AL) in patients with acute leukemia (AL).

Journal of Clinical Oncology ◽

10.1200/jco.2018.36.34_suppl.210 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 36 (34_suppl) ◽

pp. 210-210

Author(s):

Columbe Tricou ◽

Kenneth Mah ◽

Carmine Malfitano ◽

Anne Rydall ◽

Aaron David Schimmer ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Acute Leukemia ◽

Scale Validation ◽

Symptom Assessment ◽

Physical Symptoms ◽

Assessment Scale ◽

Preliminary Evaluation ◽

Preliminary Validation ◽

Edmonton Symptom Assessment Scale ◽

Symptom Assessment Scale ◽

Highly Correlated

210 Background: Patients with AL have numerous symptoms resulting from their disease and its treatment. Here we report on a preliminary evaluation of an ESAS version including AL-specific symptoms (ESAS-AL). Methods: Forty-two inpatients with newly-diagnosed AL (31 AML, 11 ALL), receiving induction chemotherapy, completed baseline assessments with the ESAS-AL and the Memorial Symptom Assessment Scale (MSAS) as part of a clinical trial. The ESAS-AL includes the nine usual ESAS symptoms (rated from 0-10), as well as five symptoms reported by patients with AL in a previous longitudinal study: trouble sleeping, mouth sores, diarrhea, constipation, and itching. Correlations between each ESAS symptom and the corresponding MSAS symptom (rated 1-4) were calculated using Spearman’s correlation. Results: The mean age was 52.86 (SD 15.84). Most correlations were moderate to large and were highly significant (Table). Correlations ranged from 0.86 (ESAS-AL/MSAS Itching) to 0.20 (ESAS-AL Anxiety/MSAS Worried). Correlations for 4 physical symptoms specific to ESAS-AL (itching, diarrhea, mouth sores, and constipation) were among the highest (rs>.70). Correlations between ESAS-AL trouble sleeping and MSAS difficulty sleeping and between ESAS-AL anxiety and MSAS worried were lowest (rs<.30). ESAS-anxiety correlated better with MSAS nervous (rs=.61). Conclusions: Well-defined ESAS-AL physical symptoms are highly correlated with equivalent MSAS symptoms, whereas less well-defined symptoms have weaker correlations. These findings provide preliminary support for the validity of the ESAS-AL. Further data collection for larger-scale validation is ongoing. [Table: see text]

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