Quality of Life and its Relation with Perceived Stress and Self-Esteem in Women under Breast Cancer Treatment

Abstract

Abstract: Introduction: breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed malignancy and is the most common cancer all over the world and in Iran and is the fifth reason of death among women. Side effects of treatment in women under breast cancer treatment can directly affect their life quality at workplace and home. Due to early diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer and also its pathologic differences from other chronic diseases, changes in life quality creates mental and spiritual changes and negative emotions and daily problems in work, people skills, stress, tension and self-confidence among patients. Therefore the aim in this research was to investigate life quality in women under breast cancer treatment and its relation with perceived stress and self-esteem.

Method: this descriptive-cross-sectional study was conducted in the year 2016 on 166 women with breast cancer under treatment referring to Ghazi, Alzahra, Valiasr and Shams hospitals in Tabriz. Sample collection was performed by available method. Data collecting tools included personal-social questionnaire, Quality Of Life Questionnaire (QLQ – C30), Cohen's Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) and Rosenberg´s Self–Esteem Scale (RSES). Data analysis was conducted using SPSS (version 21) and independent t-test, one-way ANOVA, single- and multi-variable linear regression and Pearson's correlation coefficient. P<0.05 was considered as meaningful.

Results: the mean score for life quality and patient health was 59.1±17.4 which, according to the obtainable score for life quality (0-100), patients had moderate to high life quality. The highest mean score was obtained for cognitive performance (74.9±23.8) and lowest mean score was observed for emotional performance (51.4±21.1). The mean score for perceived stress and self-esteem were 32.9±5.2 and 0.3±0.1 respectively, which according to achievable score for perceived stress (0-56), the stress of the patients was high while according to the achievable score for self-esteem (-1 to +1) their self-esteem was good. There was an inverse and meaningful relation between total life quality and functional domains, fatigue, pain, insomnia and dyspnea (p<0.05). There was a meaningful and positive relation between self-esteem and life quality (except from three domains of diarrhea, constipation and anorexia) (p<0.05).

Discussion: based on the obtained results it seems that supportive doings and special attention to increasing life quality, decreasing stress and maintaining self-esteem by healthcare officials is required