Health-Related Quality of Life in Lung Cancer Survivors: Sociodemographic, Clinical, and Psychosocial Modulators

The study aims to investigate the Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQOL) in lung cancer survivors, comparing it with the HRQOL of survivors of other types of cancer, analyzing its association with clinically significant distress, and exploring the modulating role of sociodemographic, clinical, and psychosocial variables. A total of 141 lung cancer survivors who had completed treatment with curative intent and were disease-free completed the Quality of Life in Adult Cancer Survivors questionnaire (QLACS), the Brief Symptom Inventory-18 (BSI-18), the Medical Outcomes Study-Social Support Survey (MOS-SSS), and the Utrecht Proactive Coping Competence scale (UPCC). Several multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVA) were performed to address the study objectives. Statistical analysis was performed using IBM SPSS Statistics 22.0. The overall HRQOL of lung cancer survivors did not differ from the HRQOL of hematologic, breast, and gynaecologic cancer survivors and was lower than that of colorectal, head/neck, prostate, and melanoma cancer survivors. HRQOL was associated with clinically significant distress. Younger age, female sex, lower levels of proactive coping, and less positive social interaction were independently associated with worse HRQOL in lung cancer survivors. The overall HRQOL of lung cancer survivors is among those with the poorest HRQOL compared with other cancer survivors' groups. The modifiable nature of the psychosocial variables that characterize the risk profile (with the exception of sociodemographic ones) allows for the establishment of more ambitious goals than the simple establishment of subgroups on which to prioritize care. The team of professionals involved in the care of lung cancer survivors should also provide intervention strategies that improve their well-being.