Assessing the Quality of Life of Patients with Breast Cancer Treated in a Tertiary Hospital in a Resource-Poor Country

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.