Kontakt 2012, 14(1):14-20 | DOI: 10.32725/kont.2012.003

Quality of life of patients with bronchogenic lung carcinoma before and after chemotherapyNursing

Olga Dunková, Radka Bužgová^*

Ostravská univerzita v Ostravě, Lékařská fakulta, Ústav ošetřovatelství a porodní asistence

Bronchogenic carcinoma belongs to one of the most frequent oncological diseases in the Czech Republic, particularly in men. Symptoms of the disease or side effects of the therapy can reduce the quality of life of patients. The target of the research was to determine the quality of life of patients with lung carcinoma before and after the chemotherapy. The further purpose was to find effects of the patient gender on perceiving the quality of life before and after the therapy. The sample group included 103 patients aged 40 to 80 years. For the data accumulation, Czech versions of standardized EORTC questionnaires QLQ-C30 and QLQ-LC13 for the measurement of the quality of life of oncological patients were used. Before the therapy, the patients reported the most negative assessment of the general quality of life and health and role function. They mentioned the following stress symptoms: fatigue, dyspnoea, sleeplessness, pains, anorexia, cough and pains in arms. Men perceived more considerable load in almost all the symptoms measured before as well as after the treatment compared to women. After the treatment by chemotherapy, there were no considerable changes in the patient quality of life. Respondents reported an only slight improvement of the quality of life in the field of physical functions. In the symptomatic scale, problems with dyspnoea were significantly reduced. In contrast, after chemotherapy, there were mild increases in problems with diarrhoea, alopecia, painful mouth and peripheral neuropathy (in men only). Symptoms reported by patients in the quality of life measurement as loading should be subjected to medical as well as nursing interventions.

Keywords: quality of life; symptoms; bronchogenic lung carcinoma; chemotherapy

Received: October 7, 2011; Accepted: November 28, 2011; Published: March 16, 2012  Show citation