Mood states associated with transitory physical symptoms among breast and ovarian cancer survivors

This study used electronic diaries to examine patterns of mood and physical symptoms within and across days in two independent samples of cancer patients. Twenty-three breast cancer survivors (post-treatment) and 33 ovarian cancer survivors (on chemotherapy) recorded mood and physical symptoms 4 times daily for 7 consecutive days. A series of repeated-measures multilevel models using SAS Proc Mixed were calculated to estimate the degree to which physical symptoms (e.g., pain, fatigue, and nausea) were associated with participants' moods. Across days, mood vectors with a pleasantness component (i.e., happy-sad and calm-anxious) and mood vectors with an arousal component (i.e., active-passive and peppy-tired) were significantly associated with physical symptom severity. Specifically, breast cancer survivors with greater fatigue and pain reported more negative moods (η ²≤0.33). Ovarian cancer survivors with greater fatigue (η ²≤0.35), pain (η ²≤0.04), and nausea (η ²≤0.04) also reported more negative moods. Diurnal analyses showed that happy-sad (η ²≤0.16), active-passive (η ²≤0.27), and peppy-tired moods (η ²≤0.33) were significantly negatively associated with fatigue at each of the four daily assessment times in both samples. Although correlational, our findings are consistent with previous studies suggesting that variations in both pleasant and aroused mood covary with changes in real-time physical symptom reports.