Quality of life and hope in elderly people with cancer

Bente Appel Esbensen, Thordis Thomsen

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DOI: 10.4236/ojn.2011.12004                

Abstract

The aim of this study was to describe the charac-teristics in Quality of Life (QoL) and hope in eld-erly people newly diagnosed with cancer, and to compare the results for those who survived six months after diagnosis with those who did not. The design of the study was a quantitative study in-cluding drop-out analysis. Data were collected pro-spectively from a group of 101 older people with cancer. The core questionnaire EORTC QLQ-C30 was used to measure QoL and Nowotny’s Hope Scale (NHS) was employed to measure hope. Par-ticipants who died within six months of diagnosis had significantly lower QoL and had more com-plaints about symptoms compared to those who survived. However, hope did not differ significantly between those who died and those who survived. Despite lower QoL score among those who died they were able to deal with their difficult situation and maintain hope in late life. This capacity seems to be an important component of hope in the elderly; thus it is essential to strengthen hope.

Keywords

Hope; Quality of Life; Elderly People with Cancer; Pal-liative Care; Survivors

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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