Quality of Life of Patients with Different Types of Leukemia

Background: Leukemia is one of the major causes of mortality and disability and the seventh most prevalent cancer worldwide. It has various effects on different aspects of physical, psychological, reproductive, social, and economic performance of human life. This study compared the quality of life of patients with different types of leukemia hospitalized in Ayatollah Khansari Hospital in Arak- Iran.  Methods: This is a descriptive cross-sectional study. In this study, 100 patients with leukemia hospitalized in Ayatollah Khansari Hospital in Arak city were selected by purposive sampling and evaluated during a 6-month period in 2018. Data was collected by EORTC-QLQ-C30 Quality of Life Questionnaire and analyzed by descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation and frequency) and also Chi-square, Fisher’s exact test, and t-test using SPSS software v. 21. α ≤ 0.5 was considered as significant. Results:  The overall quality of life mean score was 62.2 ± 12.59 which was in a relatively good level. The mean score of life quality was 60.10 ± 14.31 for chronic lymphocytic leukemia, 59.51 ± 12.83 for acute lymphocytic leukemia, 66.61 ± 10.94 for chronic myeloid leukemia and 62.84 ± 6.33 for acute myeloid leukemia. There were significant differences between the total quality of life and its dimensions in different types of leukemia (p<0.05). There was also a significant relationship between age, residency and marriage status of the patients with their total quality of life (p<0.05). Conclusion: Patients with myeloid leukemia had a better QoL compering to those with lymphocytic leukemia. The patients had better performance in physical area and weaker performance in social domain. Knowledge of nurses and other members of health care team about these findings could be used to promote care and help to the improvement of life quality of patients with different types of leukemia.