Background: Very few studies have assessed the quality of life (QoL) of patients living with breast cancer in a resource-poor setting like Nigeria. The aim of our study was to comprehensively examine the measures of QoL in breast cancer patients using the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Breast (FACT-B) version 4 in order to deepen the literature on QoL among breast cancer patients to include non-Western/northern patient populations.
Patients and methods: Purposive sampling of stable patients who attended general surgery clinics with histopathologically diagnosed breast cancer was done. Eligible patients were assessed using five domains of the FACT-B questionnaire including: the breast cancer-specific symptoms (BCS), emotional well-being (EWB), functional well-being (FWB), physical well-being (PWB), and social & family well-being (SWB). The questionnaire was administered in a face-to-face interview by trained research assistants. In addition, the five domains were compared among three different age categories, pre-menopausal and post-menopausal, and patients who have had surgery and chemotherapy alone. The SPSS (IBM Corp. Released in 2011. IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 20.0. Armonk, NY: IBM Corp.) and the Microsoft Excel (11. Corporation Microsoft, Redmond, WA, USA) were used for statistical analysis. Statistical significance was inferred when p <0.05.
Results: Among the 60 enrolled participants, total score of the five domains (n = 144) was 74.59 ± 17.72, FACT-G score (n = 108) was 53.49 ± 12.56, Trial outcome index (n = 112) was 49.20 ± 13.13, PWB (n = 28) was 10.95 ± 6.37, SWB (n = 28) was 18.41 ± 6.48, EWB (n = 24) was 6.98 ± 4.15, FWB (n = 28) was 17.15 ± 7.12, and the BCS (n = 36) was 21.10 ± 8.93. EWB was significantly less in post-mastectomy patients on adjuvant chemotherapy (p = 0.031) and pre-menopausal women (p = 0.041) as well as in patients less than 40 years when compared with patients more 50 years (p = 0.049).
Conclusions: Breast cancer patients in resource-poor countries have a profoundly impaired quality of life. This study showed significantly lower emotional well-being domain scores in post-mastectomy patients on adjuvant chemotherapy, pre-menopausal women having breast cancer and in younger female patients. There is need to address this anomaly.