Quality-of-life of cancer patients

During March and April 1986 a study of the quality-of-life of cancer patients was done in a medical school-affiliated community hospital in the Midwest, USA. The control group was that of a family practitioner. The experimental group was composed of only those suffering from oncological diseases and the control group of only those without cancer. Ninety-eight experimental patients were studied during 293 visits as were 112 controls during 137 visits. The study instrument was a linear analogue scale of 10 items. Patients were scored from 0 to 10 on each item and then the median, mean, span, and standard deviation were calculated. The means were compared. Overall the control group scored on average 6.67; the experimental group 6.06. This was statistically significant. Subgroups of each practice were then compared with each other, and subgroups of the oncological patients were compared with each other. In general, women in the experimental group did not differ significantly from women in the control group, while men related that they were doing more poorly than did men in the control group and women in the experimental arm. An analysis of exactly where men did worse is made. Lastly, an informed, experienced laywoman attempted to blindly predict, within one point, the scores some consecutive experimental patients would make on their test. She was unable to do this more than 20% of the time.