ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Oncol.
Sec. Breast Cancer
Symptom Networks in Breast Cancer Patients During Chemotherapy and Their Impact on Daily Living Status
Provisionally accepted
- 1Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai, China
- 2Hainan Medical University, Haikou, China
- 3Longhua Hospital Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai, China
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Background: Few current studies explore the relationships among chemotherapy - related symptoms in breast cancer patients from different perspectives, and the link between symptoms and daily life is unclear. Objective: To construct a symptom network for breast cancer patients during chemotherapy and explore symptom - symptom relationships from multiple perspectives. Methods: The Anderson Symptom Inventory was used to collect symptom data and daily - life interference of 480 patients. R software built the symptom network, and edge - weight and centrality difference tests identified core symptom clusters. Results: The 480 female patients had a mean age of 52.46 years. Symptoms were common during chemotherapy, like fatigue and restless sleep. Fatigue was the core symptom in the overall network, but it varied among groups with different chemotherapy cycles and BMI. Distress had the greatest impact on daily life. Conclusion: Attention should be paid to psychological and emotional symptoms, and priority symptoms for intervention should be selected based on the symptom network. Future research should develop dynamic symptom networks and centrality index trajectories using longitudinal data.
Keywords: breast cancer, chemotherapy, Daily Living Status, Subgroup network analysis, symptom networks
Received: 21 Sep 2025; Accepted: 10 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Zhang, Pan, Zhang, Wan, Ma and Zheng. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Jinyu Zhang
Fengjing Wan
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