Quality of life and its influencing factors in elderly patients with advanced cancer / 中华全科医师杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To assess the quality of life and its influencing factors in ellerly patients with advanced cancer.Methods The quality of life was evaluated with EORTC QLQ-C30 scale Chinese version in 103 elderly patients with advanced cancer in a hospital outpatient clinic of Beijing from July 2013 to July 2014.The overall health,physical function,role function,cognitive function,emotional function,social function and individual symptoms score were assessed.The general information and clinical data of patients were analyzed.Results The general score of quality of life in elderly advanced cancer patients was (35.77 ± 21.98).In the domain of function the role functional score was the lowest (36.60 ± 27.97);in the domain of symptoms the tired score was the highest(50.82 ± 30.16),the score of appetite loss was the highest in individual symptoms (39.78 ± 24.32).Educational level,marital status,living condition,medical insurance and the number of comorbidities were correlated with overall health in elderly patients with advanced cancer (P ＜ 0.05).Multiple linear regression analysis showed that the educational level (t =2.447,P ＜ 0.05),marital status (t =2.118,P ＜ 0.05),medical insurance (t =3.770,P ＜ 0.05) and overall health status were positively correlated with the quality of life scores;and number of eomorbidities (t =-7.157,P ＜ 0.05) was negatively associated with the overall quality of life.Conclusion The quality of life was generally poor in elderly patients with advanced cancer;and educational level,marital status,medical insurance,comorbidities are important influencing factors.