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Quality of life profile in Italian long-term cancer survivors

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Abstract

Purpose

Understanding the quality of life (QoL) of long-term cancer survivors is relevant to daily clinical practice as well as to healthcare policy. This study assessed QoL of Italian survivors and tested the association between QoL and the main clinical and socio-demographic sample’s characteristics.

Methods

Two hundred and sixty-five Italian adult long-term cancer survivors (people free from cancer and its treatments for at least 5 years) were administered the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire Core 30, the Impact of Cancer, and the Short Form 36 questionnaires obtaining three different QoL profiles—cancer-specific, survivorship-specific, and generic.

Results

In both cancer-specific and generic QoL profiles, participants reported a lower general health and a higher social functioning than normative samples; in addition, they reported low emotional functioning and vitality, respectively, in the former and latter profile. In the survivorship-specific profile, participants scored higher on personal growth and altruism (p < 0.001) and lower on dissatisfaction and life interferences (p < 0.001). Males reported less dissatisfaction and life interferences (p < 0.001), and less pain (p < 0.001) than females. Employed participants reported higher physical functioning (p = 0.001) and fewer role limitations (p < 0.001) than unemployed participants. Differences according to cancer type were recorded only in survivorship-specific domains (p < 0.004). No association between survivorship length and any of the three QoL profiles was found. Finally, the absence of other reported health issues was associated to higher functioning in the majority of cancer-specific and generic QoL domains.

Conclusions

Our data support the usefulness of multi-disciplinary follow-ups for long-term cancer survivors and the need to pay particular attention to the psycho-emotional long-term and late-presenting sequels of cancer and its treatment.

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Acknowledgments

The Authors wish to thank Dr. Lorena Giovannini for her help in collecting data. This work was supported by the Italian Ministry of Health: RF Ordinary “Cancer survivorship: a new paradigm of care” 2012–2014 and by CCM “Valutazione della Qualità di Vita e degli aspetti psicosociali della Cancer Survivorship e ottimizzazione dei programmi di sorveglianza” 2012–2014.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no potential conflict of interests.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Unit of Oncological Psychology, CRO Aviano National Cancer Institute, Via F. Gallini, 2, 33081, Aviano, PN, Italy

    Barbara Muzzatti, Cristiana Flaiban & Maria Antonietta Annunziata

  2. Department of Medicine, New York University, New York, NY, USA

    Antonella Surbone

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  1. Barbara Muzzatti
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  2. Cristiana Flaiban
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  4. Maria Antonietta Annunziata
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Correspondence to Maria Antonietta Annunziata.

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Muzzatti, B., Flaiban, C., Surbone, A. et al. Quality of life profile in Italian long-term cancer survivors. Qual Life Res 24, 959–967 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-014-0831-4

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