Peri-Transplant Psychosocial Factors and Neutrophil Recovery following Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation

OBJECTIVE: Multiple psychosocial factors appear to affect cancer progression in various populations; however, research investigating the relationship between psychosocial factors and outcomes following hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HCT) is scarce. Subject to adverse immunological and psychological conditions, HCT patients may be especially vulnerable to psychosomatic health sequelae; therefore, we studied whether optimism and anxiety influence the pertinent clinical outcome of days to neutrophil engraftment (DTE). METHOD: 54 adults undergoing either autologous or allogeneic HCT completed self-report questionnaires measuring optimism and anxiety. We assessed the association between these psychosocial variables and DTE. RESULTS: Greater optimism and less anxiety were associated with the favorable outcome of fewer DTE in autologous HCT recipients, though this relationship was no longer significant when reducing the sample size to only subjects who filled out their baseline survey by the time of engraftment. CONCLUSION: Our findings are suggestive that optimism and anxiety may be associated with time to neutrophil recovery in autologous, but not allogeneic, adult HCT recipients. Further investigation in larger, more homogeneous subjects with consistent baseline sampling is warranted.