Study On Quality Of Life In Prostate Cancer Patients And Analysis Of Influencing Factors

Objective To evaluate the quality of life (QoL) in prostate cancer patients and to investigate the differences in QoL with respect to age, education, marital status and source of medical cost.Methods From January 2005 to December 2006, 62 consecutive patients were included in our study who were diagnosed as prostate cancer and received medical intervention at Department of Urology, Qilu Hospital of Shandong University for the first time. EORTC QLQ-C30 (version 3.0) and EORTC QLQ-PR25 were used for data collection. We evaluated the baseline QoL by analyzing the data of 62 patients before treatment and the influence of medical intervention to QoL by comparing the baseline QoL and the data of 58 follow-up patients during 3-6 months treatment with t test. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to analyze the effect of age, education and source of medical cost to QoL during 3-6 months treatment; t test was used to investigate marital status to QoL during 3-6 months treatment.Results1 The baseline QoL of prostate cancer patients: physical, role, emotional, cognitive and social functioning were good (83.1-87.2); global health status/Qol was a little worse than Functional scales. The frequent symptoms were urinary symptoms (36.3), fatigue (25.2), dyspnoea (21.8), pain(19.7), insomnia(18.2) and constipation(13.2). The descending sequence of other symptoms were diarrhea(8.4), appetite loss(8.1), financial difficulties(7.6), bowel symptoms (6.1), nausea and vomiting(4.3); data of sexual functioning was missing. 2 The change of QoL in prostate cancer patients during 3-6 months treatment: role functioning was better (P<0.05); pain, insomnia, constipation urinary symptoms were better (P<0.05) and financial difficulties were worse (P<0.05); treatment-related symptoms appeared such as weight gain (41.1%), hot flushes (36.2%) and gynecomastia (31.0%); data of sexual functioning was missing.3 Differences in QoL during 3-6 months treatment with respect to age, education, marital status and source of medical cost: age influence on global health status/Qol, fatigue, pain, dyspnoea, insomnia, constipation and physical, role, cognitive functioning was statistical different ( P<0.05) ; education influence on global health status/Qol, physical functioning, fatigue, pain and constipation was statistical different (P<0.05) ; global health status/Qol, fatigue, insomnia and role, emotional, cognitive functioning were statistical influenced ( P<0.05) by different marital status; global health status/Qol, emotional functioning, pain and financial difficulties were statistically influenced (P<0.05) by different sources of medical cost.Conclusions The baseline QoL of prostate cancer patients was good in functional scales and global health status/Qol and urinary symptoms were frequent. During 3-6 months treatment, role functioning was better; pain, insomnia, constipation and urinary symptoms were better but financial difficulties were worse; treatment-related symptoms appeared. Age, education, marital status and source of medical cost all influenced QoL of prostate cancer patients during 3-6 months treatment...