Affect and symptom burden in the context of cancer: a prospective cohort study of within-person change using the Lifelines population study

Persistent physical symptoms such as pain and fatigue are common after cancer and are not fully explained by disease or treatment, implicating biopsychosocial mechanisms. Negative affect is reliably associated with somatic symptom reporting, but whether this association changes around a cancer diagnosis is unknown. Using the Lifelines cohort, this prospective study will examine the relationship between negative affect and somatic symptom burden across two assessment waves (1A and 3A), and test whether this relationship differs in people who develop cancer between waves and by cancer type. Findings will inform mechanistic models of post-cancer symptom burden and future intervention research.