Determinants of Quality of Life in Cancer Patients During Acute Survivorship

Abstract

Purpose Quality of life (QOL) has emerged as a key measure of health outcome worldwide. The objective of the study was to identify determinants of overall QOL in cancer patients during acute survivorship in Sri Lanka. Methods A prospective study assessed overall QOL in a consecutive series of newly diagnosed patients with cancer of head and neck, breast, cervix uteri, esophagus, and lung at diagnosis (n=450) and after a 4-month follow-up (n=368). EORTC QLQ-C30, which incorporates a global scale to measure overall QOL, was translated, validated, and used to collect QOL data. Age, gender, marital status, educational status, site, and stage of disease, and co-morbidity were modeled using general linear modeling to determine their impact on mean overall QOL at diagnosis ( model I ). Mode of treatment was added as a covariate in the model which assessed the determinants of the difference in mean overall QOL overtime ( model II ). Results The sample of patients at enrolment were predominantly aged P model I (F=4.37, df=19, P model II (F=2.13, df=26, P model I , only age ( P 2 =0.03) and site of disease ( P 2 =0.05) were found to have a significant impact on overall QOL at diagnosis. In model II , only co-morbidity ( P 2 =0.02) was found to have a significant impact on the deterioration of overall QOL overtime. Conclusions The overall QOL of patients with heterogeneous cancer diagnoses deteriorated markedly during the first 4 months after diagnosis. Age and site of disease (with overall QOL at diagnosis) and co-morbidity (with the deterioration in overall QOL during 4 months after diagnosis) were identified as significant determinants of QOL.