Health-Related Quality of Life and its related factors among women with breast cancer

Introduction: Breast cancer is an important issue in chronic disease studies. Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women.Life expectancy is long in patients with breast cancer and in result they suffer longer from cancer and its complications.Therefore it seems necessary to determine QOL and its related-factors in these patients. Objective: The purpose of the study isto determine Quality of Life and its related factors among women with breast cancer. Methods:This analytical descriptive study was conducted on 170 women with breast cancer referred to Educational-therapeutic hospitals in Rasht in 2011-2012. Data were collected by questionnaire including demographics and Health-related Quality of Life (WHOQOL-BREF) questionnaires. Data were analyzed using SPSS software version 16, and descriptive statistics and t-test, ANOVA, Pearson correlation coefficients and linear regression. Results: Findings indicated that samples mean age was 50.67&plusmn;10.04and mean Health-relatedQOLscore was 48.65&plusmn;9.7, physical domain 53.86&plusmn;12.45, psychological 41.05&plusmn;12.06, social 55.36&plusmn;10.52 and environment 50.26&plusmn;9.16. In assessing related factors with quality of life using multiple regression indicated significant differences between maritalstatus, occupation, type of breast surgery (p<0.05). Conclusion: QOL was lower in psychological health domain than other domains. Also, relatedfactors with breast cancer patients' QOL included maritalstatus, occupation and surgery type. Therefore paying attention to these factors and conducting psychic assessments and psychiatric consultations are important for improvement of these patients' QOL.