Qualidade de vida relacionada à saúde de pacientes submetidos ao tratamento oncológico de cabeça e pescoço

Abstract

Cancer is the second leading cause of death by disease in Brazil and its diagnosis and treatment can lead to a worsening quality of life in patients. The head and neck cancer, specifically cancer of the oral cavity, larynx and thyroid, has a high incidence, prevalence and mortality. Treatment of this type of cancer can cause side effects in patients and / or functional, aesthetic and psychosocial consequences. This study is a quantitative survey of cross-sectional study aimed to assess quality of life related to health, as well as the influence of sociodemographic and clinical variables in patients undergoing treatment for cancer of the head and neck and who underwent surgery and / or chemotherapy and / or radiotherapy. To obtain the data we used two instruments: sociodemographic and clinical questionnaire and the questionnaire Functional Assessment Cancer Therapy Head Neck (FACT-HN). This instrument consists of five domains (physical well-being (BEF), welfare-family (BESF); emotional well-being (SWB), welfare functional (BEFunc) - additional concerns in head and neck cancer (PACP) and three global indices that address the following areas: TOI (BEF + BEFunc + PACP), the FACT-G (BEF + BESF + BEE + BEFunc) and the FACT-HN (BEF + BESF + BEE + BEFUNC + PACP). For the descriptive statistics was taken the mean, median and standard deviation for quantitative variables. It was verified the association of FACT-HN quality of life scores, with the sociodemographic and clinical variables, using Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests. Subsequently were selected the predictor variables with significance p <0.20 to be subjected to multivariate analysis, performed by multiple linear regression. Remained in the final multivariate model those with p-values lesser than 0.05. The study included 170 patients. The results of medians for the TOI was 67, the FACTG was 76 and FACT-HN was 98. In the domains the worst mean score was the BESF (8.79) and FACT-HN (96.39). The variables that were significant in relation to a domain when held with the sociodemographic and clinical aspects were: ethnicity, marital status, type of cancer, staging and surgery. Those with the simultaneous significance in more than one domain are: sex on the domains, educational level on the domains; occupation and income. The variable treatment time was significant in all areas, except on the BEE.