Background: COVID-19 pandemic scares everybody especially cancer patients. This affects the treatment protocols for some patients
Aim of the work: To translate the questionnaire to Arabic and to validate it. Also to assess the patients' knowledge, attitude and perception about the COVID-19 pandemic and their willingness about continuation of anti-cancer treatment.
Patients & methods: A pilot study on 50 breast cancer patients who are actively receiving chemotherapy in the department of clinical oncology, Ain Shams University were included from November 1st, 2020 to March 1st, 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic were included to answer the questionnaire. The study correlated socio-demographic data, stage and treatment plan of the patients with their answers in the questionnaire.
Results: knowledge about COVID-19 among breast cancer patients was significantly correlated with age < 50 years old (P = 0.0293). Nearly half of patients (46%) have good knowledge about COVID-19 regarding spread, symptoms and outcome. All of the patients wanted to continue their chemotherapy. Nearly half of our patients (48%) had no worry about catching COVID-19. One third of the patients (32%) were bothered about cancer progression, almost one third (28%) were bothered about deferring chemotherapy and the other one third (28%) nothing was bothering them. Most of the patients (72%) knew that chemotherapy causes immunosuppression which increase the risk of complications in case of catching COVID-19. Most of the patients (90%) fear suffering from cancer progression if treatment stopped. Majority of our patients were taking personal protective measures.
Conclusion: This study shows that breast cancer patients are more worried about disease progression than COVID-19 and wish to continue chemotherapy during this pandemic.