Quality of Life in Head and Neck Cancer Patients with Xerostomia due to Radiotherapy

Head and neck cancers (HNC) and their treatment can cause short-term and long-term impairment in patient’s quality of life (QOL). The aim of this study was to evaluate QOL in HNC patients suffering from xerostomia due to radiotherapy.

This Descriptive analytical study was performed on 44 HNC patients suffering from xerostomia experiencing radiotherapy for more than one week at the Azar 5th educational center during 1397-1398 In Gorgan. WHOQOL-BREF questionnaire was used for data collection. Data analysis was performed by calculating central indices and dispersion, and calculating Pearson linear correlation coefficient and using independent t-test. Significance level was 0.05 and SPSS-18 software were used for data analysis.

The participants include 26 (59.09%) male and 18 (40.91%) female. The mean quality of life and general health, social relations, mental health, physical health and environmental health on a scale of 100 were 54.82, 57.95, 53.78, 48.86 and 48.22, respectively. The highest score for QOL was for men and intermediate educated and the least for the illiterate people. Aging caused all components of the quality of life to decrease which was reported to be significant (p-value<0.05) expect in social relations component.

Xerostomia due to radiotherapy reduces patientchr('39')s quality of life. Various factors such as aging, female gender and low education can be effective on the reduction of QOL.