The development of the Canberra symptom scorecard: a tool to monitor the physical symptoms of patients with advanced tumours

Table 5 Percentage of patients that experienced each symptom and the favoured severity scale for each symptom, based on variance explained¹ (N = 44).

Ranking	Symptoms	% With symptom	Favoured severity scale	% Variance explained
1	Lack of energy	64	Distress	92
1	Pain	64	Distress	95
3	Tiredness	59	Distress	91
4	Difficulty sleeping	46	Distress	93
5	Dry mouth	45	Functioning	95
6	Tense	43	Distress	94
7	Depression	39	Distress	98
7	Nausea	39	Distress	94
7	Problems remembering things	39	Distress	87
10	Shortness of breath	36	Functioning	76
10	Heartburn/belching	36	Functioning	95
12	Lack of appetite	32	Distress	97
12	Constipation	32	Distress	94
14	Dizziness	30	Distress	99
15	Weak or sore muscles	27	Functioning	99
16	Numbness or tingling of the hands or feet	25	Distress	81
17	Coughing	23	Distress	95
18	Vomiting	16	Distress	96

1. Variance explained refers to the adjusted R² obtained from OLS regressions where the dependent variable was the sum of scores from the two severity scales (distress & function) for a symptom, and the explanatory variables were the severity scales.

ISSN: 1471-2407