Iranian Nurses Perceptions of Cancer Patients Quality of Life

BACKGROUND Cancer is the third main cause of death in Iran only after cardiovascular diseases and accidents. OBJECTIVES The main aim of this research study was to identify nurses' understanding of cancer patients' Quality of Life (QoL) in an Iranian context. PATIENTS AND METHODS This descriptive correlational study was conducted in an educative referral oncology center affiliated to Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran in 2013. 50 pairs of cancer patients and their nurses were conveniently recruited. The sample of nurses were selected based on consensus sampling which included more than 70 percent of eligible nurses in the hospital. Patients and nurses were requested to complete the Farsi version of the world health organization quality of life (WHOQoL-BREF) questionnaire, separately. QoL was measured across four dimensions including physical, psychological, social relationship and environmental. RESULTS The QoL mean domain scores of patients were 10.06, 11.88, 12.76 and 11.96, respectively. The corresponding scores of nurses were 11.6, 11.23, 12.65 and 12.07. Pearson correlations between patients and nurses scores were 0.42, 0.5, 0.25 and 0.58 which revealed a fair to moderate agreement between nurses' and patients' scores in different domains. Paired samples t-test values indicated that physical QoL mean domain scores of patients were significantly lower than the corresponding drawings of nurses [t (49) = -3.41, P < 0.001]. CONCLUSIONS The main finding of this QoL study was that nurses generally have a moderate understanding of cancer patients' QoL. Therefore, in order to meet different physio-psycho-social needs of patients, nurses must enhance their understanding of patients' QoL particularly in more subjective and personal domains like social domain using a holistic approach.