Quality of life and lifestyle choices of breast Cancer patients at the Sweden Ghana Medical Centre

Abstract

Background: Breast cancer usually occurs in women, even though it can occur in men as well. The disease as well as the type of treatment patients with breast cancer receive can affect their quality of life and lifestyle choices. Although there are quite a number of research works in breast cancer, there is no available documentation of the quality of life and lifestyle choices of breast cancer patients in Ghana. Aim: The study aimed at assessing the quality of life (QoL) and lifestyle choices of patients with breast cancer at the Sweden Ghana Medical Centre. Methods: 80 patients with breast cancer who reported to the Sweden Ghana Medical Centre for chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatment in August 2020, were considered in this study. A quantitative descriptive cross-sectional design was employed in this study. The Functional Assessment Cancer Therapy-Breast (FACT-B) instrument version 4 tool and a researchermade questionnaire were used for data collection over a one-month period August 2020. The data collected was analyzed with STATA version 16. Results: The overall QoL score for the population was about 43% and suggestive of moderate to low QoL in the various functional roles in the patients. Patients who received curative radiotherapy and surgery enjoyed the highest QoL scores as measured by their Emotional Wellbeing (EWB) (62.4 ± 5.4%, p=0.000) and Functional wellbeing (FWB) (62.5 ± 7.5%, p=0.006). Relationships which were statistically significant were established between the QoL domains and the treatment options (p=0.000). Functional well-being domain scores were significantly higher for the three surgical procedures (p=0.027). The highest median scores ≥ 60.0% were recorded for the healthy lifestyles of the patients for all variables, except in partial mastectomy where a lower median score of 52.5% was found. There were no significant relationship between their healthy lifestyles choices and the independent variables. Statistically significant (p=0.001) median scores for diet lifestyle choices was found across the age groups, but none in the other variables. The median score in the patients’ personal appearance and social lifestyles were low, except for curative radiotherapy treatment and lumpectomy treatment regimens and surgery where their personal appearance lifestyles were significantly high (p <0.001). A statistically insignificant difference in the marital status of the patients (p=0.136) was found. An expected outcome of such low scores is an adverse impact on marital relationships with their husbands due to mastectomy. Conclusion: The versatile FACT-B Version 4 QoL tool and lifestyle choices tool employing five QoL domain subscales and four lifestyle dimensions has been used to evaluate the QoL and lifestyle choices of patients with breast cancer who reported for treatment at the Sweden Ghana Medical Centre. The assessments were done using the mean and median inter-quartile ranges of the measured scores. Functional well-being (FWB) was the most enjoyed QoL by the breast cancer patients across the independent variables. Relationships which were statistically significant were established between the QoL domains and the treatment options (p=0.000).