Purpose: To explore the relationship between the status quo and influencial factors of oral cancer patients and their quality of life.
Methods: Using the Distress Themometer (DT) and the University of Washington Quality of Life Questionnaire (UW-QOL), 250 patients admitted to the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University from October 2016 to September 2017 with oral cancer were investigated. Chi-square test, t test, logistic regression analysis and Spearman correlation analysis were used to analyze the data with SPSS20.0 software package.
Results: A total of 250 questionnaires were issued, 239 valid questionnaires were available for analysis. In 239 oral cancer patients, 139 (58.2%) had DT score ≥4. The average total score of UWQOL scale was 53.3±17.1, score <4 was noted in 100 patients (41.8%); the average UWQOL scale was 52.8±17.4. Univariate analysis showed that psychological distress was related to age, educational level, income level, pathological stage, jaw resection and recurrence (χ2 values were 5.12,21.31,34.2,10.69,31.3 and 7.84, respectively, P<0.05 ). Logistic regression analysis showed that age, jaw resection and relapse were the risk factors of psychological distress in patients with oral cancer (OR=4.06, 5.12 and 5.79, respectively; P<0.05). Spearman correlation analysis showed that the scores of pain, recreation, emotion and anxiety in UWQOL scale were negatively correlated with psychological distress scores (r=-0.58, -0.84, -0.66 and -0.69, respectively; P<0.05).
Conclusions: Oral cancer patients have a higher incidence of psychological distress. Younger patients,and those with maxillectomy and recurrence have more serious symptoms of distress.