Quality of Life of Polish Patients with Lymphoma Treated Systemically

Abstract

Research on the quality of life has become of great importance. It is used by clinical researchers to compare the impact of treatment regimens on patients. The choice of treatment method may significantly depend on the patient’s opinion. A cross-sectional study was conducted using the method of a diagnostic questionnaire survey. The research tools were the authors’ questionnaire and the standardized WHOQOL-BREF. The study was conducted among patients with lymphoma, treated systemically. More than half of the surveyed patients assessed their overall quality of life as good (50%) and very good (6%), while the expressed satisfaction with health most often ranged from neutral (38%—neither good nor bad) to dissatisfactory (30%) and very dissatisfactory (6%). As regards the detailed domains, the area of physical functioning was rated the lowest, while for the remaining domains—psychological, social, environmental—values above average (60.38–64.30) were observed. Social support, particularly from the immediate family, resulted in a higher assessment of the quality of life. The occurrence of side effects related to anticancer treatment and the disease had a statistically significant impact on the decrease in the quality of life, particularly in the physical domain.

Keywords

• health-related quality of life
• chemotherapy
• Hodgkin’s lymphoma