Quality of life and its determinants: A study among cancer patients in radiotherapy outpatient department of a tertiary care hospital of Kolkata

Introduction: Cancer patients suffer a lot physically, emotionally & practically. In some cancer disease quality of life has become an important end point for treatment. Thus quality of life assessment becomes an important issue among cancer patients. Objective: To evaluate the quality of life of cancer patients attending Radiotherapy OPD in IPGMER, Kolkata and to find out, if any association of socio-demographic profile with the quality of life. Materials and Methods: A descriptive type of observational study, with cross sectional study design was conducted among the patients attending Radiotherapy OPD of I.P.G.M.E.R. & S.S.K.M Hospital. Results: The most negatively affected domain by cancer was the psychological domain which had the lowest mean score among all the domains (37.25±16.3). Mean scores in psychological (41.4) and environmental domain (54.3) were significantly (p<0> Conclusions: Most affected by cancer is psychological quality of life. But with longer duration of cancer patients seemed to get adjusted with the suffering. Undergoing surgery not only improved physical perception of health, but also acted as a psychological boost up.