Factors Affecting Quality of Life of Cancer Patients in North India

Introduction: Cancer is the second leading reason of death in many countries, and its burden and prognosis are highly dependent on disease stage at diagnosis. Lack of perception of the population about cancer and its related risk factors usually sequel in defer/delayed presentation and increased treatment morbidity and decrease survival chances. Quality of life (QOL) is defined as Individual view of life, merits, intentions, standards and interests in the framework of culture.

Aims And Objectives: To study the socio-demographic profile and factors affecting quality of life of cancer patients.

Material And Method: Using a cross-sectional study, between 1 January 2021 to 31 December 2021, 192 cancer confirmed patients at cancer registry centre at District civil hospital, Ambala cantt. were interviewed using a pre tested semi-structured questionnaire along with EORTC QLQ-C30 (version 3) questionnaire scale for QOL. The data was entered into an excel sheet and was analysed using IBM SPSS version 28.

Results: Out of 192 patients, 95 were male and 97 were female. Results shows that female (60.05±19.167) had better mean score of QL2 than male (58.68±18.906) with P value=0.619. Overweight (BMI25.0-29.9) had better mean QL2 score (65.50±18.147) than obese (BMI>30.0) mean QL2 score (61.67±14.803), normal weight (BMI 18.0-24.9) mean QL2 score (59.57±18.575) and underweight (BMI<18.0) mean QL2 score (49.46±19.595) with P value of 0.004.

Conclusion: Present study found that QOL had significant association with BMI, type of cancer, history of smoking, lost income after cancer diagnosis and stage of cancer at the time of diagnosis. While gender, occupation, age group, religion, residence, marital status, type of family, income, tobacco alcohol and physical activity showed no significance association with QOL.