Supportive care needs and quality of life of patients with gynecological cancer undergoing therapy

Objective

To identify the relationship of unmet supportive care needs with quality of life of patients with gynecological cancer undergoing therapy.

Method

This study used a cross-sectional design. A total of 153 patients with gynecological cancer undergoing therapy were recruited using consecutive sampling methods. The participants completed the questionnaire of Supportive Care Needs Survey to identify their supportive care needs, EORTC-QLQ 30 to assess their general quality of life, and EORTC-QLQ-CX 24 or - OV 28 to determine cancer-specific quality of life in cervical cancer and ovarian cancer, respectively.

Results

Most of the participants (96.1%) reported their unmet needs of supportive care predominantly in the physical domain (80.4%). Unmet supportive care needs were found to be statistically significantly related to quality of life in the global health, functional, and symptom domains (p value 1 = 0.003, p value 2 = <0.001, and p value 3= 0.001; r1 = -0.235, r2 = 0.306, and r3 = 0.268, respectively).

Conclusions

Patients with gynecological cancer needs various supportive care during treatment. These supportive care needs should be identified early at the time of diagnosis and continued throughout the disease and treatment trajectory to the survivorship point. Otherwise, unmet supportive care needs may lead to a low quality of life.