Open AccessThe Quality of Life of People with Solid Cancer is Less Worse than Other Diseases with better Prognosis, Except in the Presence of Depression
Author(s) -
Cesar Iván Avilés González,
Matthias C. Angermeyer,
Laura Deiana,
Caterina Loi,
Elisabetta Murgia,
Anita Holzinger,
Giulia Cossu,
Elena Massa,
Ferdinando Romano,
Mario Scartozzi,
Mauro Giovanni Carta
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
clinical practice and epidemiology in mental health
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.692
H-Index - 48
ISSN - 1745-0179
DOI - 10.2174/1745017902117010315
Subject(s) - medicine , quality of life (healthcare) , depression (economics) , fibromyalgia , cancer , depressive symptoms , psychiatry , anxiety , nursing , economics , macroeconomics
Background: Suffering from Solid Cancer (SC) may adversely impact the Health-related Quality of Life (H-QoL). The aims of this study are to measure the H-QoL in a sample of people suffering from SC and to clarify the role of the co-occurrence of depressive episodes. Results were compared with a healthy control group and with groups of other disorders. Methods: In 151 patients with SC (mean±sd age 63.1±11.5; female 54.3%), H-QoL was assessed by SF-12, depressive episodes were identified by PHQ-9. The attributable burden of SC in impairing H-QoL was calculated as the difference between SF-12 score of a community sex and age ¼ matched healthy control group and that of the study sample. The attributable burden of SC was compared with other chronic diseases using specific diagnostic groups drawn from case-control studies that used the same database for selecting control samples. Results: H-QoL in people with SC was significantly worse than in the healthy control group (p<0.0001). The attributable burden in worsening the H-QoL due to SC was similar to those of severe chronic diseases, but lower than Multiple Sclerosis (p<0.0001) or Fibromyalgia (p<0.00001). Having a depressive episode was a strong determinant of decreasing H-QoL, regardless of the severity of cancer. Conclusion: The findings confirm a strong impact of SC but showed that H-QoL in SC was higher than in chronic diseases with better “quoad vitam” outcome. Since depression was a strong determinant, its prevention, early detection and therapy are the main objectives that must be reached in cancer patients.