A follow-up study of the quality of life in cancer patients with different prognoses.

The present study examines differences in quality of life between two points in time in a heterogeneous sample of cancer patients with different prognoses. The original sample comprised 253 patients, while the follow-up data obtained 3-4 years later included 75 patients, that is, 92% of the survivors. All the patients completed a questionnaire including the EORTC QLQ-C30. The research questions focus on overall changes in quality of life, and whether patients with a good prognosis would show less negative changes in quality of life than patients with a poor prognosis. The overall observed changes in quality of life were surprisingly small over a 3-4 year period. This study shows that prognoses do predict changes in social functioning and in some physical aspects of quality of life over a 3-4 year period after the assessment of prognoses by physicians. Prognoses did not, however, predict changes in psychological aspects of quality of life.