Quality of life of cancer survivors after physical and psychosocial rehabilitation

Abstract

As the number of newly diagnosed cancer patients and the survival rates of cancer increase, more and more cancer patients are facing distressing physical and psychosocial problems as a result of their cancer and its treatment. To address these problems, a 12-week rehabilitation group program for cancer patients (all cancer types), combining physical exercise and psycho-education, was tested in a longitudinal cohort study (n=658). At baseline, participants reported a low quality of life, measured by the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) Quality of Life Questionnaire (QLQ-C30) (range 0-100). Halfway through the intervention significant improvements were found in all domains, except cognitive functioning. At the end of rehabilitation, participants had reached significant improvements on all outcome variables: in global quality of life (from 63.0 to 71.9), emotional functioning (from 66.2 to 74.4), cognitive functioning (from 70.5 to 74.4) and fatigue level (reduction from 49.8 to 41.8) while, moreover, non-breast cancer patients showed clinically relevant improvement in physical functioning (from 67.3 to 80.4) and social functioning (from 63.4 to 79.4) and non-working patients showed a clinically relevant improvement in role functioning (from 57.0 to 69.6).

Cancer patients' view on rehabilitation and quality of life: a programme audit

“…The positive quantitative outcomes of the programme's biopsychosocial approach (Korstjens et al 2006) were confirmed by the generally positive experiences of participants who appreciated the multi-modal programme. The sample size of this study (n = 23) was small compared with the cohort (n = 658) of the quantitative effect study, but it reflected the baseline characteristics rather well.…”

“…For these analyses we combined two datasets; the effect study dataset, including those participants who were also recruited for the focus groups, and the focus group dataset (Korstjens et al 2006).…”

“…Reviews of separate physical interventions (Courneya & Friedenreich 1999;Irwin & Ainsworth 2004;Oldervoll et al 2004;Schwartz 2004) and psychosocial interventions (Fawzy et al 1995;Meyer & Mark 1995;Andersen 2002) for cancer patients show benefits on physical and psychosocial functioning, and other quality of life domains. Several combined cancer rehabilitation interventions (Berglund et al 1994;Mock et al 1994;Courneya et al 2003;Van Weert et al 2004, 2005Korstjens et al 2006) showed beneficial quantitative outcomes. To understand the working mechanisms in such a combined programme, qualitative data were collected from participants in a 12-week multi-modal cancer rehabilitation programme that showed significant improvements in quality of life (Korstjens et al 2006).…”

“…Several combined cancer rehabilitation interventions (Berglund et al 1994;Mock et al 1994;Courneya et al 2003;Van Weert et al 2004, 2005Korstjens et al 2006) showed beneficial quantitative outcomes. To understand the working mechanisms in such a combined programme, qualitative data were collected from participants in a 12-week multi-modal cancer rehabilitation programme that showed significant improvements in quality of life (Korstjens et al 2006). This article describes participants' experiences in this multi-modal programme, their views on the value of cancer rehabilitation and their suggestions for improvement of the programme.…”

The effect of group cohesion on rehabilitation outcome in cancer survivors

“…Several of these programs were offered to individuals in group format and these reported improvement in quality of life, physical functioning and fatigue in cancer patients during primary treatment [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] and after completion of initial treatment [11][12][13][14]. Recently, interest has been growing in patients' experience with training within groups.…”