Factors Associated With Quality of Life Among Posttreatment Cancer Survivors in Korea: A Meta-analysis

Identification of factors associated with quality of life (QOL) among cancer survivors is crucial for identifying potential targets for intervention.

We aimed to provide evidence of factors associated with the QOL among posttreatment cancer survivors in Korea.

We performed a systematic literature search from January 2000 to September 2022 using PubMed, EMBASE, CINAHL, PsycINFO, and Korean databases (RISS, SCIENCEON). We evaluated study quality using the Joanna Briggs Institute Quality Appraisal Checklists for Analytical Cross-sectional Studies and performed statistical analysis using the R 3.0 software (R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria) package. We analyzed the pooled effect sizes of potential QOL correlates by the random-effects model.

This meta-analysis included 31 studies with 8934 participants. The pooled estimates were significantly large for economic status ( r = -0.53); significantly medium for fatigue ( r = -0.39), anxiety ( r = -0.29), depression ( r = -0.42), self-efficacy ( r = 0.37), and social support ( r = 0.30); and significantly small for education level ( r = -0.18), job status ( r = -0.09), cancer stage ( r = -0.20), and time since diagnosis ( r = -0.26).

Low education level, having no job, low economic status, advanced cancer stage, short disease period, fatigue, anxiety, and depression were significantly associated with worse QOL, whereas self-efficacy and social support were significantly associated with better QOL.

The findings have potential implications for identifying "at-risk survivors" of deteriorated QOL and for suggesting powerful strategies (eg, enhancing self-efficacy or social support) for improving QOL.