Dados do Trabalho

Título

HEALTH-RELATED QUALITY OF LIFE ASSESSMENT IN PEDIATRIC CANCER PATIENTS WITH AND WITHOUT FATIGUE: A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY

Introdução

Introduction: Cancer-related fatigue (CRF) is a subjective sensation of the patient, which can be considered a distressing feeling, persistent as physical, emotional or cognitive exhaustion. Children and adolescents suffer when they experience CRF together with other unpleasure symptoms that occur simultaneously, forming clusters of cancer symptoms. Although, previous studies report symptoms of children and adolescents with cancer, including CRF and psychological stress as dependent variables, however, this knowledge is still incipient, especially when considering CRF and quality of life as primary outcomes, particularly in the Brazilian pediatric population.

Objetivo

Objective: To compare the health-related quality of life (HRQOL) scores of children and adolescents hospitalized with cancer who presented and did not present fatigue and to correlate fatigue and HRQOL.

Método

Method: A cross-sectional study was carried out for 48 months in the onco-hematology sector of a public hospital located in the interior of São Paulo, with 63 children and adolescents with cancer. To assess fatigue and HRQoL, participants completed, respectively, the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory™ Multidimensional Tiredness Scale and Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory™ Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory, acute version, in the generic module and cancer module, respectively. Data were analyzed using descriptive, bivariate and multivariate statistics.

Resultado

Results: The mean of the total fatigue scores (61.2±16.3) and HRQOL (generic: 61.5±20.5; cancer: 61.2±16.3) were low, demonstrating that children and adolescents with cancer are fatigued (p=0.000) and with low quality of life (p=0.000). In the regression model, fatigue could be explained in 61.25% by the variables emotional functioning (p=0.0110), school functioning (p=0.0004) and cognitive difficulties (p=0.0017). Participants without fatigue had better mean HRQL score when compared to the fatigued group.

Conclusão

Conclusion: Children and adolescents hospitalized with cancer have a low quality of life and high levels of fatigue. In addition, the relationship between some dimensions of HRQOL and fatigue is positive, indicating that the worse the school and emotional functioning and the greater the cognitive difficulties, the greater the fatigue.

Palavras-chave

Health-related quality of life. Cancer-related fatigue. Pediatric cancer patients.