Illness Perception and Quality of life in Breast Cancer Patients

Goranka Petriček, Klaudija Gospić, Gorka Vuletić, Venija Cerovečki, Zlata Ožvačić Adžić, Miroslav Hanževački

Keywords: Breast Cancer, Illness Perception, Family Medicine

Background:

Breast cancer (BC) is the most frequent cancer in women. Evidence suggests that the illness perception is closely related with the quality of life of BC patients

Research questions:

To investigate the illness perception in BC patients and its relation with the QOL.

Method:

Cross-sectional study was carried out in 100 BC patients in 18 Croatian family medicine practices. Patients completed two questionnaires: The Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire (Brief IPQ-B) and The World Health Organization quality of Life "WHOQOL – BREF" Questionnaire. Patients’ general and disease data were also collected. Statistic analysis was done using Statistika, version 7.1 statistic program, and values P<0.05 were considered statistically significant.

Results:

The patients mean age was 59.05 ± 11.3 years and duration of their BC was 57.39 ± 31.93 months. Distribution of patients' illness perception average scores (on 0-10 Thurston scale) showed higher scale range for: treatment control (8.6±1.8), personal control (7.3±2.5) and illness coherence (7.5±2.8); while lower scale range for: consequences (4.1±2.8), illness duration (4.0±3.1), concern (4.0±3.1), emotional response (4.0±3.1), timeline (4.0±3.1) and illness identity (2.7±2.6). QOL average values (on 1-5 Likert scale) showed tendency of higher scale range (3.6±0.6). Younger patients were significantly more concerned (p<0.01) and with greater emotional response (p<0.05) than older patients. Patients with shorter illness duration perceived significantly less treatment control (p<0.05) and their illness to have more consequences (p<0.01) than patients with longer illness duration. Patients who scored high on consequence (p<0.01), timeline (p<0.01), identity (p<0.05), concern (p<0.01) and emotional response (p<0.05) had significantly lower QOL.

Conclusions:

Significant relationships between illness perception and QOL observed in BC patients imply strengthening BC patients’ emotional and social support could be helpful in improving their QOL.

Points for discussion:

#96