Indian Journal of Health and Wellbeing

Reetinder Kaur ¹

Affiliations
1 Department of Anthropology, Panjab University, Chandigarh, IN

Abstract

The experiences of cancer patients at the time of diagnosis affect their future course of treatment. The present study was conducted to understand the experiences of newly diagnosed cancer patients. The data was collected from 230 cancer patients using an interview guide. The experiences of cancer patients were divided into various themes:ignoring symptoms and late diagnosis, social support at the time of diagnosis, previous experiences and role in decision-making and information needs at the time of diagnosis. The results suggest that there is a need to understand the experiences of patients at the time of diagnosis in socio-cultural context so that therapeutic process can be made more sensitive and effective. The careful analysis of the experiences of patients at the time of diagnosis suggests that there is a need for more information and open communication between the patients, caregivers and health care providers. The health care of cancer patients should be made more culturally sensitive and family centered.

Keywords

Cancer, Decision Making, Information Needs and Social Diagnosis.

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Reetinder Kaur ¹

Affiliations
1 Department of Anthropology, Panjab University, Chandigarh, IN

Abstract

Palliative care is the total care of patients whose disease is not responsive to curative treatment. The control of pain, other distressing symptoms and improving quality of life are important goals of palliative care. The present study aims to analyze the role of palliative care in improving quality of life among advanced cancer patients. The data is collected by using QLQ-C30 questionnaire from 30 advanced cancer patients at their first and second visit to a palliative care unit in a tertiary care centre. The physical functioning among advanced cancer patients was found to be lowest and cognitive functioning was found to be highest at the first baseline assessment. The emotional, social and role functioning showed improvement with palliative care. In symptom scale, constipation, dyspnoea, insomnia, nausea, appetite loss and pain improved expect for fatigue. Findings of the study shows that advanced cancer patients benefited from the palliative care. Thus, it can be concluded that palliative care plays a very crucial role in improving QOL among advanced cancer patients.

Keywords

Cancer, Palliative Care, Quality of Life.

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