Quality of Life and Its Contributing Factors Among Patients with Breast Cancer: A Descriptive-Analytical Study

Abstract

Background and Aim: The prevalence of breast cancer is increasing among Iranian women. Breast cancer and its treatments can affect ones quality of life. The aim of this study was to assess the quality of life and its contributing factors among patients with breast cancer. Methods: This descriptive-analytical study was conducted in 2014 - 2015 on 108 women who had been diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008 - 2014 and had received cancer treatments for at least 3 months before recruitment to the study. Initially, a list of all eligible women was created based on the data available from the cancer record center in South Khorasan, Iran. Then, eligible women were contacted over the telephone and were invited to the study. The 30-item EORTC core quality of life questionnaire and the 23-item EORTC Breast cancer quality of life questionnaire were completed for participants through face-to-face interviews. Collected data were entered into the SPSS software (v. 16.0), where the two-way analysis of variance was conducted for data analysis at a significance level of less than 0.05. Results: The total mean score of quality of life was 2.01 ± 0.47. Around 85.2% of participants had low quality of life, 13.9% had medium quality of life, and 0.9% had high quality of life. Quality of life had significant relationships with marital status and income (P < 0.05). The highest-scored dimensions of the functional and the symptom scales of the Core quality of life questionnaire were global health status (2.67 ± 0.78) and financial difficulties (2.8 ± 1.07), respectively. On the other hand, the highest-scored dimensions of the functional and the symptom scales of the breast cancer quality of life questionnaire were future perspective (2.62 ± 0.97) and systematic therapy side effects (2.11 ± 0.73), respectively. Conclusions: Only 0.9% of breast cancer patients have high quality of life and more than 85% of them have low quality of life. Women are at the heart of families and communities. Therefore, educational interventions and governmental support are needed for improving the quality of life among women with breast cancer.