Quality of Life for Women with Breast Cancer and Socio-Demographic Variables

Background: Quality of life assessment is an important parameter in assessing how survivors cope with the impact of the disease and its treatment.Objective: To assess the quality of life for breast cancer women and to determine socio-demographic factors affecting it.Methods: A descriptive-analytic cross-sectional study design was used. Data regarding socio-demographic characteristics were collected from a purposive sample consisting of 250 breast cancer women in Baghdad City for the period from June 20th 2023 to November 31th 2023. We used the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Core Quality of Life Questionnaire (EORTC-C30 and QLQ-BR-23) for the assessment of the patients.Results: The average age of the women was 46.83 ± 12.32 years. The worst quality of life results was recorded in the domain of financial impact, with a mean score of 2.36 ± 0.79. In symptom scales: Pain, fatigue, and hair loss were the highest symptoms, followed by appetite loss and arm symptoms, which had a moderate effect. The mean scores for physical and role function of quality of life had a low and moderate assessment in all items. Regarding the psychological domain, anxiety and depression, had the highest score of 2.35, followed by thinking and body image, which had a moderate score of 2.01 and 2.03 respectively. While the memory and concentration scale had a lower score (1.58). The mean score for the sexual activity scale had a relatively moderate score in all items. There are high statistically significant differences between all socio-demographic variables and quality of life domains for breast cancer women (P-value < 0.05).Conclusion: Breast cancer and its treatment affect all domains of the quality of life of breast cancer women. The age, education, marital status, occupational status, and monthly income of breast cancer women might be affected by their quality of life.