Assessment of Quality of Life among Terminally Ill Cancer Patients Receiving Palliative Care at Hospice Centre, Ahmedabad City, India.

BACKGROUND: Cancer has been the leading cause of death worldwide, and palliative care is an approach that improves the quality of life (QoL) of patients and their families facing the problem associated with life-threatening illness. Hospice care helps patients and their family to cope with the change from treating the cancer to living life as fully as possible through their final days. This study aimed to (1) assess the sociodemographic and clinical profile of terminally ill cancer patients, (2) assess the QoL among terminally ill cancer patients receiving palliative care, and (3) study various determinants affecting their QoL.

MATERIAL AND METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted among terminally ill cancer patients receiving palliative care at the Hospice Centre, Community Oncology Centre, Ahmedabad. Based on previous years' admission data, a sample size of 360 was taken. Patients who are seriously ill up to the extent that they were unable to respond and had a previous positive history of psychiatric illness before the diagnosis of cancer were excluded. Institutional ethical committee (IEC) permission was obtained before the study. Statistical analysis was performed using the Chi-square test in Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software.

RESULTS: The mean age of participants was 48.1 ± 13.0 years. The gender distribution of participants was males and females (226 (62.8%) and 134 (37.2%)), respectively. On studying, the involvement of various anatomical sites as "primary site of cancer" revealed that head and neck carcinoma had the highest (63.3%) involvement and hematological cancer had the lowest (0.6%) involvement. Of total, 62% of participants had "below-average QoL," followed by 34.9% of participants having "significantly poor QoL." There was a significant association between different age groups, time lag in cancer diagnosis, and treatment initiation and QoL.

CONCLUSION: Spearman's rank correlations between the majority of factors fell in "low partially positive" category except for the physical well-being (factor 2) and psychosocial well-being (factor 3) with optimism and belief (factor 7), where they were in "low partially negative" category.