Health-related quality of life and health care services expectations of the patients with lung cancer

Abstract

Non-small cell lung cancer is approximately 80% of all lung cancer. This type of lung cancer is usually presented with advanced stage at diagnosis and have a very poor prognosis. The management of non-small cell cancer at those stages generally is chemotherapy and/or concurrent chemoradiotherapy. However, potent chemotherapeutic agents and radiotherapy have serious adverse effects. This study aimed to determine lung cancer patients' expectations from health care providers, and levels of anxiety and depression besides health-related quality of life. This study was performed on 40 patients diagnosed as advanced stage non-small cell lung cancer at Baskent University hospitals in Turkey. SF-36 questionnaire was used to determine health-related quality of life, Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HAD) was used to determine depression and anxiety level, and ECOG performance scale was used for performance evaluation. SF-36 scale yielded less than 50 points in all subscale evaluations (p < 0.05). The lowest mean scores were observed in emotional and physical role enforsement subscales. Calculations of hospital anxiety and depression scale showed 8.4 +/- 4.16 mean scale for anxiety (at borderline), and 7.6 +/- 4.8 for depression (normal). ECOG performance status was 0 for 20.5%, 1 for 44.1%, 2 for 32.4% and 3 score for 2.5% of the patients. Most of the non-small cell lung cancer patients had poor quality of life, with deterioration of both psychological and physiological function. We observed that those patients could not get necessary health care.