Current and Desired Behavioral Health Resources for Children: A Survey of Illinois Emergency Departments.

Breast cancer remains the most prevalent malignant tumor among women globally, with its incidence showing a sustained upward trend. According to the latest data from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the global number of newly diagnosed breast cancer cases reached 2.8 million in 2024, accounting for 31.4% of all female malignant tumor diagnoses. Statistics from China's National Cancer Center indicate that while the 5-year survival rate for breast cancer in China has risen to 83.2%, the incidence of psychological complications during treatment remains as high as 76.3%, emerging as a critical factor affecting patients' quality of life (–). In the comprehensive treatment framework for breast cancer, chemotherapy serves as a pivotal modality, yet its associated side effects—such as alopecia, nausea, and fatigue—often trigger excessive worry about disease progression and mortality. This psychological response is defined as “anticipatory grief” in medical psychology. Anticipatory grief represents a unique psychological stress reaction among cancer patients, characterized by fear of treatment-related adverse effects, sadness related to loss of role function, and anxiety about future uncertainties (, ). Literature reports indicate that anticipatory grief occurs in 68–82% of breast cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy and is significantly associated with reduced treatment adherence, deteriorated quality of life, and shortened survival duration (–). A meta-analysis incorporating 12 studies revealed that unaddressed anticipatory grief increases the risk of chemotherapy interruption by 2.3-fold and elevates the 5-year recurrence rate by 1.8-fold. This psychological state not only disrupts treatment progression but may also establish a vicious cycle of “psychological stress-physiological response-disease progression”. Retrospective cohort designs offer advantages in rapidly acquiring clinical data and reflecting real-world clinical practice, but they are primarily suitable for examining associations rather than establishing causal effects. This study enrolled 158 breast cancer patients receiving chemotherapy between August 2023 and December 2024. Using propensity score matching (PSM) to reduce baseline imbalance, we compared psychological and quality-of-life outcomes between patients who received EFT combined with psychological nursing and those who received conventional nursing. Multidimensional assessment tools were used to examine differences in psychological state, coping strategies, and quality of life between the two cohorts. This study was designed as a retrospective cohort study and included breast cancer patients who received chemotherapy at our hospital between August 2023 and December 2024. After eligibility screening, 158 patients were included in the matched cohort analysis. Eligible patients were first classified according to documented nursing exposure into a combined-intervention cohort and a conventional-nursing cohort. PSM was then performed to reduce baseline imbalance between the two cohorts. After 1:1 matching, 79 patients were retained in the combined-intervention cohort (EFT plus psychological nursing) and 79 patients were retained in the conventional-nursing cohort for comparison of psychological and quality-of-life outcomes. This retrospective cohort study involving human participants was reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee of Jinan Central Hospital (Approval No.: FKLC23HL02; Approval date: 2023-06-11). The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and relevant institutional and national regulations on medical data protection. Because this study used only anonymized existing clinical records and psychological assessment data collected during routine care, involved no additional intervention, examination, follow-up procedure, or risk to participants, and did not include identifiable patient images or personal information, the Ethics Committee of Jinan Central Hospital waived the requirement for additional study-specific informed consent. Patient privacy was protected by de-identifying all data before analysis, removing personal identifiers such as names and identification numbers, restricting access to the dataset to authorized researchers only, and presenting all results in aggregate form to prevent individual identification.