Does Pain Adversely Affect the Quality of Life in Hospitalized Cancer Patients?

Background: Each year, 9 million patients are diagnosed as a cancer. The pain is the most common cancer-related symptom. The prevalence of severe pain at diagnosis, during-active treatment and at advanced disease stage range from to 14-100%, to 50-70% and to 60-90% respectively.

Methods: In this study, the factors affecting the quality of life of cancer patients, the effects of these factors and pain on the quality of life of hospitalized cancer patients were investigated. 175 patients in Oncology Department were included. Short Form 36 and Algology Department form.

Results: In our study, the proportion of patients who had pain and who had no pain were 98.9% and 1.1% respectively. When we looked at the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) score of patients, we saw that pain affects negatively on quality of life scores. When we evaluated the factors like weakness, nausea, vomiting, insomnia, sweating and when we compared the patients who had these symptoms and no symptoms like this; we found that all of these symptoms have negative impact on quality of life.

Conclusions: The development of new surgical techniques, the use of new drugs and therapies in cancer treatment increase survival and decrease mortality in cancer patients. As a progressive disease and duration of life with cancer is prolonged. So, quality of life and pain in cancer patients are becoming increasingly important.