Sleep Disorders Prior to and During a Course of Radiotherapy for Breast Cancer
The main goal of the study is to evaluate sleep disorders in breast cancer patients prior to and during a course of radiotherapy in terms of severity of sleep disorders, distress for the patients and use of sleeping drugs, in order to evaluate the potential effect of habituation to radiotherapy during the course of treatment and generate hypotheses thereof. The patients will be asked to complete a questionnaire prior to radiotherapy, after 5 and 15 fractions of radiotherapy, and at the end of radiotherapy. The questionnaire includes questions regarding symptoms, distress, sleep disorders and sleeping drugs. In addition, a questionnaire regarding the use of smartphones / tablets will be completed prior to radiotherapy. Forty-eight patients with documented start of radiotherapy and with a documented completed questionnaire at baseline and at least one completed questionnaire after start of radiotherapy should be subjected to statistical analysis. Assuming that 5% of patients do not fulfil these requirements, a total of 51 patients should be enrolled to this study.
Start: June 2021