Quality of Life in Thyroid Cancer: A Questionnaire Based-Study

The aim of the present study is to identify how the quality of life is affected in differentiated thyroid cancer population, and most important, how can we influence different factors in order to improve the well-being of our patients. A cross-sectional study of 135 differentiated thyroid cancer patients was conducted. Patients who met the inclusion criteria were invited to complete the quality of life questionnaire -thyroid version (QOL-TV). The questionnaire comprises four sections with the consequent items (physical well-being, psychological well-being, social concerns and spiritual well-being). We used Pearson correlation for uniform distribution of variables and Spearman correlation for monotonic relationship between variables. We found that tiredness is the most important factor influencing the physical well-being; initial diagnosis and surgery had a big impact on psychological well-being, thyroid cancer has a big impact on patient's families and religious activities may help the patients to restore the spiritual well-being. The quality of life in thyroid cancer patients is influenced by many factors and we are responsible for identifying which of the problems are having the biggest impact on our patients. We must help them in order to restore the quality of life and to make them feel that thyroid cancer is the real "good" cancer.