Knowledge of cancer symptoms and anxiety affect patient delay in seeking diagnosis in patients with heterogeneous cancer locations

Abstract Purpose This research was aimed at identifying factors that predict patient delay in treatment initiation in patients with suspected cancer disease. We sought to determine the differences between delaying and non-delaying patients with reference to their knowledge of cancer symptoms, sociodemographic variables, and the levels of state-anxiety and trait-anxiety. Methods The study involved 301 randomly selected patients with suspected cancer disease before their first oncology appointment at a regional oncology centre in Poland. Data were collected by means of a semi-structured interview conducted by a trained psychologist. To evaluate the knowledge of cancer symptoms, the symptoms mentioned by subjects were compared to the list of symptoms from Cancer Awareness Measure. Anxiety levels were assessed using the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI). Results In the course of logistic regression analysis a model was developed, in which knowledge of cancer symptoms and state-anxiety allowed to predict patient delay. Knowledge of every additional cancer symptom decreased the chance of patient delay by 16.4 percentage point [95% CI: 1.4–29.2]. An increase in state-anxiety for every point of the scale decreased the chance of delay by 2.5 percentage points [95% CI: 0.2–4.6]. Trait-anxiety and the studied sociodemographic variables proved to be nonsignificant predictors of patient delay. Conclusions Knowledge of cancer symptoms and the level of state-anxiety allowed to predict patient delay in the initiation of treatment. Owing to the heterogeneity of the tumor locations within the sample, the obtained model can be used in large scale prevention programmes designed for the whole population.