An exploration into the quality of life of women treated for cervical cancer

Background: Cervical cancer mainly occurs among women from the developing world, and women face unique challenges in terms of their disease and treatment. Most women present with advanced cervical cancer and receive the standard curative treatment with external beam radiotherapy and brachytherapy wi...

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Main Authors: Caroline Sabulei, Johanna E. Maree
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: AOSIS 2019-05-01
Series:Curationis
Subjects:
Online Access:https://curationis.org.za/index.php/curationis/article/view/1982
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spelling doaj-1b2ff11db9a04c1c8f29afffab4723b22020-11-25T00:41:59ZengAOSISCurationis0379-85772223-62792019-05-01421e1e910.4102/curationis.v42i1.19821391An exploration into the quality of life of women treated for cervical cancerCaroline Sabulei0Johanna E. Maree1Department of Nursing Education, University of the Witwatersrand, JohannesburgDepartment of Nursing Education, University of the Witwatersrand, JohannesburgBackground: Cervical cancer mainly occurs among women from the developing world, and women face unique challenges in terms of their disease and treatment. Most women present with advanced cervical cancer and receive the standard curative treatment with external beam radiotherapy and brachytherapy with or without chemotherapy. Objectives: To describe the quality of life (QOL) of women treated for cervical cancer during treatment (M0), at 6 months after completing treatment (M6) and at 12 months after treatment (M12). Methods: A cross-sectional design, calculated sample size (n = 153) and convenience sampling were used. Data were collected through structured interviews, and the EORTC QLQ-C30 and EORTC QLQ CX24 served as data collection instruments. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse the data, and the Kruskal–Wallis H test was used to compare the mean responses across the groups (p ≤ 0.05). Results: The mean age of the respondents was 50.6 years (standard deviation [SD] 11.9). The global health status improved significantly in contrast with the functional scores. Financial difficulties were rampant, especially during the treatment phase. Insomnia and urinary frequency were the most cumbersome problems and remained so even after treatment. Conclusions: Despite an improvement in the global health, cervical cancer and its treatment had a negative influence on the QOL in all domains of lives of these women. Assessing the QOL of patients during treatment and follow-up visits would allow nurses to develop interventions to address distressing problems timeously. In addition, Africa’s nurses should assess social functioning and develop programmes to prevent social dysfunction.https://curationis.org.za/index.php/curationis/article/view/1982Cervical cancerQuality of LifeRadiotherapySouth Africa
collection DOAJ
language English
format Article
sources DOAJ
author Caroline Sabulei
Johanna E. Maree
spellingShingle Caroline Sabulei
Johanna E. Maree
An exploration into the quality of life of women treated for cervical cancer
Curationis
Cervical cancer
Quality of Life
Radiotherapy
South Africa
author_facet Caroline Sabulei
Johanna E. Maree
author_sort Caroline Sabulei
title An exploration into the quality of life of women treated for cervical cancer
title_short An exploration into the quality of life of women treated for cervical cancer
title_full An exploration into the quality of life of women treated for cervical cancer
title_fullStr An exploration into the quality of life of women treated for cervical cancer
title_full_unstemmed An exploration into the quality of life of women treated for cervical cancer
title_sort exploration into the quality of life of women treated for cervical cancer
publisher AOSIS
series Curationis
issn 0379-8577
2223-6279
publishDate 2019-05-01
description Background: Cervical cancer mainly occurs among women from the developing world, and women face unique challenges in terms of their disease and treatment. Most women present with advanced cervical cancer and receive the standard curative treatment with external beam radiotherapy and brachytherapy with or without chemotherapy. Objectives: To describe the quality of life (QOL) of women treated for cervical cancer during treatment (M0), at 6 months after completing treatment (M6) and at 12 months after treatment (M12). Methods: A cross-sectional design, calculated sample size (n = 153) and convenience sampling were used. Data were collected through structured interviews, and the EORTC QLQ-C30 and EORTC QLQ CX24 served as data collection instruments. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse the data, and the Kruskal–Wallis H test was used to compare the mean responses across the groups (p ≤ 0.05). Results: The mean age of the respondents was 50.6 years (standard deviation [SD] 11.9). The global health status improved significantly in contrast with the functional scores. Financial difficulties were rampant, especially during the treatment phase. Insomnia and urinary frequency were the most cumbersome problems and remained so even after treatment. Conclusions: Despite an improvement in the global health, cervical cancer and its treatment had a negative influence on the QOL in all domains of lives of these women. Assessing the QOL of patients during treatment and follow-up visits would allow nurses to develop interventions to address distressing problems timeously. In addition, Africa’s nurses should assess social functioning and develop programmes to prevent social dysfunction.
topic Cervical cancer
Quality of Life
Radiotherapy
South Africa
url https://curationis.org.za/index.php/curationis/article/view/1982
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