The Association of Dyadic Symptom Appraisal With Physical and Mental Health Over Time in Care Dyads Living With Lung Cancer

The study examined the association between changes in dyadic symptom appraisal with changes in physical and mental health of 109 family care dyads living with lung cancer over 12 months. Multilevel modeling was used to analyze both aggregate and time-varying associations of dyadic symptom appraisal with dyadic health. Patients had significantly worse physical health compared with their care partner; care partners had significantly worse mental health compared with patients. In general, greater incongruent symptom appraisals were significantly associated with worse physical health for both patients and care partners. Importantly, increases in magnitude of incongruence regarding the patient’s pain interference were significantly associated with declines in patient physical health over time. Direction of the incongruence was associated with mental health. Findings highlight the need for both a longitudinal and dyadic perspective of symptom appraisal to move toward theoretically driven interventions that will optimize the health of both patients and their care partners.