Background:
The diagnoses and treatment of cancer has a major disruptive effect on most patients’ lives, and patients enter therapy with the recognition that therapy aimed at cure is followed by side effects that have negative impact on their Quality of life
In Ghana, between the years 2004-2006 at KATH, gynaecological cancers formed about half of the overall recorded cases of cancer.Aim:
To assess quality of life of gynaecological cancer patients receiving radiotherapy treatment at Oncology Directorate of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital.
Methods:
prospective, cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted within proposed period of four months to assess the QoL of gynaecological cancer patients receiving Radiotherapy treatment at the Oncology Directorate of Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital. 60 eligible patients were recruited and given the FACT-G instrument survey to fill.
Result:
Majority of the cases were cervical cancer (86.7%) and the others includes; vulva (6.7%), vagina (5.0%) and endometrium (1.7%).
Majority of the patients were found to be between 45 and 75 years (47%). Majority of the patients had stage 3 cancers (68%). Eighty percent of the patients had a very stable QoL while 1.7% of them had a poor QoL and generally there was a strong correlation between FWB and EWB (r= 0.65) but the other subscales were statistically insignificant.
Ninety percent of the patient were not at all satisfied with their sexual life, on the contrary, majority (50%) of the patients agreed that their families have accepted their conditions and hence were quite (58.3% ) satisfied with the level of communication with them.
Conclusion:
As recommended, it is envisaged that caregivers, clinicians and even other family members concerned must help give the best form of treatment and care to enable patient have a good QoL.