Assessing the Quality of Life of Breast Cancer Patients Undergoing Treatment at the National Radiotherapy Center, Accra, Ghana

Background: Quality of life is an important clinical outcome in assessing health care. It is a concept that includes many subjective elements: physical, emotional and social function, attitudes to illness, patient's daily lives-including family interactions. Quality of life is increasingly used as an outcome measure in oncology research studies appearing in a variety of forms in several literatures. Aim: The study was aimed at assessing the quality of life of breast cancer patient undergoing treatment at the Radiotherapy Center, Accra, Ghana. Methods: This cross-sectional descriptive study involved 30 patients over a 3-month period. Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy (FACT-B) Specific Scale for Breast Cancer Survey Instrument was used to collect the data which was analyzed with SPSS. Results: The peak age range of the patients was between (56-65) years. Out of these, 60% (n=18/30) received triple treatment modalities, namely, surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Surgery and chemotherapy alone accounted for 16.7% (n=5/30). Further 10% (3/30) had surgery with adjuvant radiotherapy. Three patients 10% had only surgery and one patient (3.3%) received both chemotherapy and radiotherapy. The scores for the quality of life domains were general emotional well-being (18.8+8.4), general physical well-being (16.5+6.1), general social well-being (14.3+7.0) and general functional well-being (10.9+5.7). The quality of life of three patients (10%) was found to be poor, while 70% (n=21/30) had stable quality of life and 20% (n=6/30) with good quality of life. Conclusion: Considering the quality of life domains or subscale scores and the overall quality of life scores, it is concluded that no significant difference exists ( P > 0.05) in the quality of life status of the patients irrespective the treatment modality received.