Observational studyCurrent oncology (Toronto, Ont.)2025
Associations Between Symptom Complexity and Acute Care Utilization Among Adult Advanced Cancer Patients Followed by a Palliative Care Service.
Observational study in Current oncology (Toronto, Ont.), 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Among adult advanced cancer patients already accessing palliative care, symptoms can contribute to unplanned acute care utilizations, which can disrupt care and worsen patient outcomes. We examined how a novel symptom complexity algorithm, using patients' ratings of the nine Edmonton Symptom Assessment System-Revised (ESAS-r) symptoms to assign "low", "medium", or "high" complexity, predicts acute care utilizations. This retrospective observational cohort study used electronic medical record data from the Durham Regional Cancer Centre in Ontario, Canada, comprising adult advanced cancer patients who completed at least one ESAS-r report between 1 January 2022 and 31 December 2023. We applied chi-squared tests, Kruskal-Wallis H tests, and multivariable binary logistic regressions to evaluate factors associated with higher odds of acute care utilization within seven and fourteen days of patients' first ESAS-r reports after their first palliative care interaction. Of 559 included patients, 125 (22.4%) exhibited low complexity, 180 (32.2%) exhibited medium complexity, and 254 (45.4%) exhibited high complexity on their first ESAS-r report. In total, 61 (10.9%) patients accessed acute care within seven days and 108 (19.3%) patients accessed acute care within fourteen days of their first ESAS-r report. Controlling for sociodemographic and clinical covariates, compared to low-complexity patients, high-complexity patients had higher odds of acute care utilization within seven days (aOR = 2.83, 95% CI: 1.18-6.77), but not within fourteen days (aOR = 1.78, 95% CI: 0.97-3.28). Accordingly, as a clinical decision-making tool, ESAS-r symptom complexity may help identify patients who would benefit from more intensive follow-up and potentially reduce unnecessary acute care utilizations.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.