QUALITY OF LIFE ASSESSMENT AFTER BREAST CANCER TREATMENT.

Background: Breast cancer is most common female cancer in the world and it is also the principle cause of death from cancer among women globally. Women living with and beyond breast cancer have special needs that have to be considered by society and health care system. Due to emergence of physical, psychological and social effects after diagnosis, the quality of life (QOL) of women is highly affected, which leads to change in attitude and expectations towards life. The majority of clinical studies on breast cancer focuses on treatment and survival. However, with a greater life expectancy promoted by advances in therapeutics and early diagnosis, interest has shifted to the assessment of quality of life (QOL). The purpose of this study is to understand, evaluate and assessment of quality of life in female breast cancer survivors and factors that could influence quality of life and the main life areas where the women are more affected when they receive their diagnosis. Method: A total of 100 patients with breast cancer were studied in department of surgery at Guru Nanak Dev Hospital Amritsar Punjab after applying exclusion and inclusion criteria and after proper consent. The survey in this study contained a total of 26 questions from WHOQOL-BREF which provides a fast profile of 4 areas (domains). Result: The results of the study show that there was a significant variability of general QOL, physical domain, psychosocial domain, social domain, and environmental domain in relation to age group, marital status, employment, education of the patient, education of the head of the family, occupation of the head of the family, socio-economic status Conclusion: The outcomes in this study shows that sociodemographic variables are highly influenced by psychological domain and least with the environmental and social domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]