An Exploratory Study to Assess the Quality of Life among Cancer Patients of District Bathinda, Punjab

Background of study: Cancer is the second biggest cause of death in India, growing at 11 per cent annually. Patients with cancer often have to deal with severe side effects or physical effects and psychological distress during and after cancer treatment, which have a substantial impact on their quality of life. Quality of life is vital health outcome measure that is relevant to the care of cancer patients.

Objective: To assess the quality of life among cancer patients. Methodology- A total 100 cancer patients were studied. Purposive sampling technique was used to select the sample. FACT-G tool by Dr. Cella was used to assess the quality of life among cancer patients.

Results: The present study revealed that 35 % cancer patients were in age group 51-60 years, 69 % cancer patients were females, majority of cancer patients 79% belonged to Sikh religion, 88 % cancer patients were married, 68% cancer patients were illiterate, 51% cancer patients had family income less than Rs.5000 per month. Maximum of cancer patients 73% were vegetarian. There were 70% of cancer patients who belonged to nuclear family, 74% of cancer patients were residing in rural area, 49% of cancer patients belonged to upper lower class of socio-economic status. 23 types of cancer were found during data collection and more of the subjects were suffered with breast cancer (27%), maximum 75% subjects were diagnosed from less than five years, more than half 53% subjects were at stage I of cancer, that majority 85% of subjects had no family history of cancer, most of the cancer patients 92% were taking Allopathic treatment, 76% were taking treatment for less than 5 years, 77% were chosen private sector for treatment of cancer, 58% perceived polluted water was the cause of cancer, 23% of cancer patients had affected family members other than blood relation and 22% affected family members were expired with cancer. More than half 53% of cancer patients had average quality of life, followed by 44% of cancer patients had good quality of life. There were only 3% of subjects who had poor quality of life. The analysis of quality of life shows that social well-being was better whereas emotional well-being was the worse domain with mean score 26.35 and 12.19. Age, occupation and stage of cancer had impact on quality of life.