Quality of Life of Hospitalized Patients with Hematological Diseases

Hematological diseases have a wide age range of disease onset, repeated hospitalizations, long periods of treatments and hospitalization, special hospitalization conditions, isolation that lead to restrictions to their social life and impaired quality of life. The hospital is the place where patients, families, nurses and doctors come together for a common purpose, the restoration of the patient’s health. Ensuring a quality of life in the hospital environment requires the participation of all the healthcare team and building a “healing environment”. Nursing priorities for improving the quality of life in the hospital include ensuring comfort, psychosocial support, providing palliative and patient centered care and patient centered environment. A patient centered environment responds holistically to the needs of its users, including accessibility, safety, privacy and dignity, comfort and wellbeing, personal choice and control. The inclusion of arts, music, exercise and festivities improve quality of life during hospitalization. Family members also are welcomed to stay and care for the patients during long periods of hospitalization. Patients hospitalized for hematological diseases are a unique population with complex needs. So, research, innovation, and initiatives are needed to incorporate new methods to improve their quality of life during hospitalization.