【Abstract】Objective To investigate the occurrence and influencing factors of postoperative symptom clusters in elderly patients with lung cancer. Methods A total of 150 elderly patients with lung cancer admitted to our hospital from January 2022 to March 2023 were recruited and surveyed with the lung cancer module of M.D.Anderson symptom inventory-Chinese (MDASI-C) for the occurrence of postoperative symptom clusters. SPSS statistics 20.0 was used for statistical analysis. Data comparison was performed using t test or ANOVA depending on data type. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was employed to identify the influencing factors for the occurrence of postoperative symptom clusters in elderly patients with lung cancer. Results The analysis on clinical symptoms found that fatigue, decreased appetite and nausea were most common symptoms in the patients. The symptoms with higher severity score were pain, fatigue, sleep disturbance, anorexia, forgetfulness and mouth dryness. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that platelet count <100×10⁹/L (OR=3.931,95%CI 1.185-13.047), alanine aminotransferase (ALT) ≥40 U/L (OR=4.125,95%CI 1.198-14.207), white blood cell count >10×10⁹/L (OR=3.248,95%CI 1.191-8.860), per capita monthly family income <2000 yuan (OR=3.912,95%CI 1.379-11.098), and duration of chest tube retention ≥3 d (OR=5.228,95%CI 1.298~21.064) were independent risk factors for postoperative symptoms in elderly patients with lung cancer (P<0.05). Conclusion There are various postoperative symptom clusters in elderly patients with lung cancer. Pain, fatigue, sleep disturbance, anorexia, forgetfulness and dry mouth are serious symptoms. Clinical intervention should be strengthened for related patients to implement effective management of symptom clusters.

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81972175).