Quality of Life and Psychological Distress of Lung Cancer Patients Undergoing Chemotherapy

Abstract

Background: Patients with lung cancer often experience multiple symptoms associated with both the disease itself and the treatment. The disease and therapy-related adverse effects may lead to poor quality of life (QoL) and increased psychological distress. The aim of this study was to investigate the QoL and psychological distress of patients with lung cancer. The relationship between these two aspects was also an area of focus. Methods: This was a quantitative descriptive study. Data collection was done using a self-complementary tool. The data were collected between February and March 2020. The sample consisted of 135 patients with lung cancer who were undergoing chemotherapy in 1-day clinic in Athens (a sample of convenience). Results: Regarding the QoL of our sample, we observed that the mean score of the physical health component of SF-12 was 38.17 ± 9.94 and of the mental health component was 45.63 ± 11.80. Asregards the psychological distress of our sample, we observed that the mean score for depression was 4.55 ± 5.04, for anxiety was 3.84 ±4.17 and for stress was 5.21 ± 5.01. Conclusion: As is clear from the results, lung cancer patients reported poor QoL and increased rates of psychological distress. Articles © The authors | Journal compilation © World J Oncol and Elmer Press Inc™ | www.wjon.org This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited