Fear of disease progression and related factors among chronic disease patients attending South Wollo zone government hospitals

Fear of disease progression is a common problem among patients with chronic disease. However, to the authors' knowledge, it was not studied in Ethiopia. Thus, this study aimed to assess fear of disease progression and related factors among patients with chronic disease attending South Wollo zone government hospitals, Northeast Ethiopia. Institution-based cross-sectional study design was conducted among 411 patients with chronic disease for quantitative data. For qualitative data in-depth interview were done until information saturation. The total sample size was allocated proportionally based on the number of patients in selected government hospitals. Finally, from each selected hospital, patients were selected using systematic random sampling technique. Fear of disease progression was measured using fear of progression questionnaire. A significant association was declared at p-value of < 0.05 in multivariable analysis. In this study, 40.9% (95% CI = 36.3-45.7) of patients had high fear of disease progression. Patients with heart failure, presence of comorbidities, not attending health education, poor social support, current chat use, severe depression, moderate anxiety and severe anxiety were significantly associated with high fear of disease progression. Eating sweet foods, heavy work, improper use of medication, afraid of death, stressful living conditions, shortness of breath and fatigue manifestations, afraid of comorbidity, absence of social support, drug resistance, thinking about children and depression were explained as the reasons for fear of disease progression in qualitative part of this study. Significant numbers of patients had high fear of disease progression. Therefore, policy makers, health professionals and community should give more attentions especially for those patients with the identified significant associated factors to reduce high fear of disease progression. Researchers should focus to get clear information about fear of disease progression for patients with a particular disease.