Quality of life among cancer patients approaching healthcare facilities in United Arab Emirates

Abstract

Background: The main aim of the study was to compare the quality of life (QOL) of cancer patients and healthy adults according to different domains.Methods: The study was conducted in Gulf medical university, Tawam hospital, Al Ain and Thumbay hospital, Ajman from March 2018 until January 2019. In addition, our study was a cross sectional study that included 250 cancer patients and 250 healthy adults. The WHOQOL-BREF questionnaire and a self-administered questionnaire were used. The research was conducted in Tawam hospital, Gulf medical university and Thumbay hospitals/clinics over a period of 9 months. SPSS version 24 was used for analysis. F test and t test were used to assess the difference between mean QOL levels in various groups.Results: The highest mean score for healthy subjects accounts for the social domain followed by physical, then psychological and the lowest is the environmental domain with values of (73.9, 70.7, 70.3 and 68.9 respectively). While the highest mean score of QOL for cancer patients was related to psychological domain followed by environmental, then social and lastly the lowest domain is associated with physical accounting for values of (66.6, 66.5, 66.2 and 60.6 accordingly). Over all the mean scores regarding all the domains of healthy adults with is higher than in cancer patients.Conclusions: Healthy adults had higher mean QOL score levels than cancer patients. Moreover, cancer patients have a 1.65-fold risk of having poor QOL. It has been concluded that the highest mean score for healthy subjects accounts for the social domain (73.9) followed by physical (70.7), then psychological (70.3) and the lowest is the environmental domain (68.9).