Prevalence and relationship of malnutrition and distress in patients with Cancer using questionnaires

BACKGROUND: Negative feelings, such as anxiety and depression, are common in patients with cancer. Our aim was to investigate the prevalence of malnutrition and distress in cancer patients and to examine the relationship between them. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We did a cross-sectional study in West China hospital, China, using adapted questionnaires derived from Patient-Generated Subjective Global Assessment (PG-SGA), Nutritional Risk Screening 2002 (NRS2002) and Distress Thermometer (DT). We also focused on the factors associated with distress. RESULTS: We found that psychological distress in cancer patients was common, with 39.5% patients suffering from distress. The mean score of PG-SGA was 3.37 (0–6), and 39.1% patients had malnutrition when using 4 as a cut-off value. Meanwhile, the mean score of NRS2002 was 1.91 (0–11), and 25.8% patients presented with malnutrition when using 3 as the cut-off value. Higher scores of nutritional risks confirmed by PG-SGA (r = 0.148, p < 0.001) and NRS2002 (r = 0.142, p < 0.001) were significantly correlated with higher levels of psychological stress. CONCLUSION: Malnutrition was correlated with psychological stress in cancer patients. Early intervention in the mental problems and nutrition was meaningful, which could improve the psychological statuses of cancer patients. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12885-018-5176-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.