IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v20y1985i8p809-817.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The quality of life of cancer patients: A review of the literature

Author

Listed:
  • de Haes, Johanna C. J. M.
  • van Knippenberg, Ferdinand C. E.

Abstract

In recent years the necessity of including quality of life (QL) measurement in cancer research has been stressed. In this paper an overview is given of the results of studies into the QL of cancer patients. From descriptive studies it appears that the quality of certain domains of life is impaired by cancer treatment. Results from studies in which two or more groups of cancer patients are being compared are not consistent. The expectation that the QL of patients is impaired more negatively by certain treatment modalities is confirmed in some studies but not in several others. Even the assumption that the QL of cancer patients is worse than the QL of the normal population is not substantiated. In this paper explanations for these unexpected results are forwarded. First, the definition and operationalization of the concept QL differs from one study to another. QL may either refer to an overall evaluation or to the evaluation of certain domains of life, and, either to the subjective experience of the patient or the evaluation of the situation by others. Secondly, other methodological difficulties especially with respect to reliability, validity and design are described. Finally, it is suggested that psychological mechanisms may account for the absence of differences between cancer patients and others and may therefore, on theoretical grounds, explain the established inconsistencies.

Suggested Citation

  • de Haes, Johanna C. J. M. & van Knippenberg, Ferdinand C. E., 1985. "The quality of life of cancer patients: A review of the literature," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 20(8), pages 809-817, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:20:y:1985:i:8:p:809-817
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0277-9536(85)90335-1
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Erik Angner & Jennifer Ghandhi & Kristen Williams Purvis & Daniel Amante & Jeroan Allison, 2013. "Daily Functioning, Health Status, and Happiness in Older Adults," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 14(5), pages 1563-1574, October.
    2. Ivana Dabo & Iva Skočilić & Bella Vivat & Ingrid Belac-Lovasić & Iva Sorta-Bilajac Turina, 2021. "Spiritual Well-Being for Croatian Cancer Patients: Validation and Applicability of the Croatian Version of the EORTC QLQ-SWB32," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(22), pages 1-15, November.
    3. Ami Rokach, 2007. "Coping with loneliness among the terminally ill," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 82(3), pages 487-503, July.
    4. Marie-Christine Taillefer & Gilles Dupuis & Marie-Anne Roberge & Sylvie LeMay, 2003. "Health-Related Quality of Life Models: Systematic Review of the Literature," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 64(2), pages 293-323, November.
    5. Anne Gadermann & Anita Hubley & Lara Russell & Anita Palepu, 2014. "Subjective Health-Related Quality of Life in Homeless and Vulnerably Housed Individuals and Its Relationship with Self-Reported Physical and Mental Health Status," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 116(2), pages 341-352, April.
    6. Massimo Aria & Michelangelo Misuraca & Maria Spano, 2020. "Mapping the Evolution of Social Research and Data Science on 30 Years of Social Indicators Research," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 149(3), pages 803-831, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:20:y:1985:i:8:p:809-817. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.