Abstract
Palliative treatment is the best treatment for advanced cancer patients improve their quality of life (QOL). There is a lack of local data on the patients' QOL among cancer patient receiving palliative treatment in a university medical center in Malaysia. This study aims to describe QOL among patients with advance cancer disease receiving palliative treatment in a teaching hospital in Kuala Lumpur. This was a cross-sectional study that has been done with 120 of cancer patients that receiving palliative treatment using convenience sampling. The SF-36 questionnaire has been used to measures Quality of Life (QOL) across eight domains based on physically and emotionally component summary. Results showed that the highest score of QOL were observed in the Mental Component Summary (44.93± 6.84) compared with Physical Component Summary at (42.24± 7.91). More studies are needed to investigate patients who score poorly on physical and mental component aspects to understand their needs in order to achieve better cancer care especially in social work perspective.
Highlights
Cancer is a chronic disease that causes misery to millions of people around the world (Fujinami et al, 2015; Meeker, Finnell, & Othman, 2011)
Demographics and clinical information were collected from each patient including Short Form Health Survey (SF-36) to assess quality of life advanced cancer patients
Indicators for the quality of life was measured by the impact of a disease and its treatment on a patient’s perceived health and functional status based on physical functioning, role limitations due to physical health; role limitations due to emotional problems; energy/fatigue, emotional well-being, social functioning, bodily pain and general health
Summary
Cancer is a chronic disease that causes misery to millions of people around the world (Fujinami et al, 2015; Meeker, Finnell, & Othman, 2011). The physical, psychosocial and spiritual discomforts experienced by patients with cancer other comorbidities and the endless struggle during the disease will decreases quality of life (QOL) In this situation the families and health professionals should more emphasize preservation of life and maximization of comfort to increase the quality of life especially for the patients that have reached a terminal stage. Beside that the functionality in physical, cognitive, roles, self-functioning and social decreased (Edib & Kumarasamy, 2015; Magaji et al, 2012; Ng et al, 2015; Priscilla, Hamidin, Azhar, Noorjan, Susan, and Bahariah, 2011; Wan Puteh Saad, Aljunid, Manaf, Rizal, Sulong & Azrif, 2013) It may become more serious when it is in advanced stages due to their inability to manage themselves and others
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