Quality of life of cancer patients (2016)

Background: Cancer as a chronic disease with special treatment such as chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and surgery can affect patients both psychologically and physiologically complicating all aspects of patients' life. Thus, assessing the patients’ quality of life for better care planning is of prime priority. Objective: To determine the level of quality of life in cancer patients considering the physiological, psychological, environmental, and social relation domains. Methods: This was a cross-sectional descriptive analytical study performed on 63 patients with cancer who were referred to oncology clinic of Kosar hospital in Qazvin during 2007. The patients were interviewed by the researchers using the Persian version of the world health organization quality of life (WHOQOL-BREF) questionnaire. Analysis of data were carried out using SPSS and descriptive statistics including the chi-square test, t-test, ANOVA, Pearson correlation coefficient and regression. Finding: Of total 63 patients, 41.3% were males and 58.7% females among those 33 between 40-60 year with 42 having an income of not more than $250 per month. Most patients (46%) were treated by surgical measures and chemotherapy and 93.7% with no knowledge about cancer. Among patients, 60.4% in physiological domain, 55.5% in psychological domain, and 66.7% in environmental health domain showed low and moderate levels of quality of life. In social domain, 71.5% were found to have high level quality of life. Also, the study demonstrated that there was a correlation between the patients' quality of life in physiological domain and the number of children while the duration of treatment was found to influence the other domains of quality of life. Conclusion: Considering the data of the present study, most patients were middle age, with low income, and unaware of their needs. Regarding the environmental health, psychological, and physiological domains, the patients were found to have low and moderate levels of quality of life. Hence, the serious intervention by physicians, nurses, and health politician towards improving the patients’ quality of life is of prime necessity.