Health Related Quality of Life among Blood Cancer Patients in Pakistan: A Cross Sectional Survey

Abstract

The importance of health-related quality of life and its determinants including physical, emotional, and functional domains has long been recognized among blood cancer patients in the developed world but this concept is still in infancy in developing countries, including Pakistan. The objective of the study was to assess health related quality of life among blood cancer patients. A descriptive cross-sectional study design was used. A pre-validated questionnaire that is EORTC-QLQ-C30 was self-administered to a sample of 400 blood cancer patients selected using convenience sampling technique. After data collection, data was cleaned, coded, and entered in SPSS. Descriptive statistics comprising of frequency and percentages were calculated. Non-parametric tests Kruskal Wallis and Mann Whitney tests ( P ≤ .05) were performed to find out the differences among different variables. The results highlighted that lowest scores for EORTC-QLQ-C30 were observed in the domain of emotional functioning (3.38, ±35.790), followed by cognitive function (4.56, ±30.368) whereas highest scores were observed in the domain of physical functioning (40.92, ±35.484). Significant difference ( P ≤ .05) was observed among different domains of health-related quality of life of blood cancer patients treated in different sectors, provinces, setting, gender, and with different comorbidities. The present study concluded that blood cancer patients had poor health related quality of life in Pakistan. Emotional functioning and cognitive function were the most compromised health related quality of life domains among blood cancer patients. Females having blood cancer, those patients treated in private sector healthcare facilities, patients residing in tribal and rural setting had relatively better health related quality of life. No appropriate psychosocial care program for the blood cancer patients are available in Pakistan.