Mental health patient-reported outcomes among adolescents and young adult cancer survivors: A systematic review

Abstract

Background: Adolescent and young adult (AYA) cancer patients and survivors face significant mental health challenges throughout their cancer journey that are different to those faced by children and older adults. Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) can be used to explore the experiences of AYAs, and to identify important issues and areas for potential improvement in quality of life.; Objective: We aimed to compare patient reported mental health outcomes between AYAs diagnosed with cancer and non-cancer controls.; Method: We built on a larger systematic review of AYA cancer PROMs which searched PubMed, EMBASE, CINAHL and PsychINFO. This review identified 175 articles, which were filtered to those reporting on mental health and including a non-cancer control group.; Results: We identified 12 eligible studies. Seven studies (58%) found those diagnosed with cancer reported poorer mental health than the non-cancer controls. The remaining five (42%) studies found no significant difference in severity or prevalence of mental health between the AYA cancer cohort and the healthy control group. Most (83%) were cross-sectional studies, highlighting the need for further longitudinal assessment of this group throughout their journey.; Conclusions: The mental health outcomes feature conflicting results and illustrate the need for larger studies to characterise discrepancies. (© 2023 The Authors. Cancer Medicine published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)