Symptom Profile in Patients Receiving Radiation Therapy

 

Symptoms queried for:

(1) sleep difficulties

(2) fatigue

(3) skin changes

(4) anorexia

(5) nausea

(6) vomiting

(7) indigestion

(8) diarrhea

(9) constipation

(10) sore throat

(11) cough

(12) difficulty swallowing

(13) changes in saliva

(14) pain

(15) urinary frequency

(16) other, not specified above

Symptom Severity	Points
not bad	0
a little bad	1
moderately bad	2
quite bad	3
extremely bad	4

 

NOTE: The assigning of a point score was not given in the original paper. I added this for preparing a spreadsheet.

 

total symptom score =

= SUM(points for all of the symptoms)

 

Interpretation:

• minimum total score: 0

• maximum total score: 64

• The number of symptoms causing moderately bad, quite bad and extremely bad distress also is informative.