Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2017 Sep 19;15(1):180.
doi: 10.1186/s12955-017-0758-x.

Employment status and health related quality of life among Hodgkin-lymphoma survivors'- results based on data from a major treatment center in Hungary

Ferenc Magyari  1 , Karolina Kósa  2 , Roland Berecz  3 , Anna Illés  4 , Zsófia Miltényi  5 , Zsófia Simon  5 , Árpád Illés  5
Affiliations

Employment status and health related quality of life among Hodgkin-lymphoma survivors'- results based on data from a major treatment center in Hungary

Ferenc Magyari et al. Health Qual Life Outcomes. .

Abstract

Background: Due to risk and response adapted treatment strategies, more than 80% of newly diagnosed classical Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) patients can be cured, and become long-term survivors. However, a high proportion of survivors suffer from treatment-related long-term side effects such as secondary malignancy, organ failure, persistent fatigue and psychological distress. The aim of this study was to evaluate psychological distress and its risk factors among our HL survivors.

Methods: One hundred sixty-three (50% female) adult HL survivors were contacted between January 1, 2012 and march 31, 2015 in our outpatient centre. The patients were asked to complete a standardized, validated, self-administered Hungarian questionnaire with demographic questions and the following scales: Hospital anxiety and depression scale (HADS14), general health questionnaire (GHQ12), sense of coherence (SOC13) perceived stress scale (PSS4), dysfunctional attitude scale (DAS17). Disease and treatment data were acquired from hospital records.

Results: Majority of HL survivors are in early adulthood, our most important goal should be to return them to normal life after their lymphoma is cured. The employment status at the time of survey seemed to be crucial so patients were divided into either active (n = 93) or inactive (n = 47) group. Retired survivors (n = 19) were excluded from the subgroup analysis. Psychological distress was significantly lower in active patients. Multiple logistic regression analysis showed significant differences between the inactive and active subgroups, such as age at diagnosis (≥30 years or below, p = 0.001), education level (below college vs. college, p = 0.032) and treatment related long-term side effects (yes vs. no, p < 0.001). Predictors for treatment-related long-term side effects are female gender (p = 0.011), chemotherapy protocol (ABVD vs. other, p < 0.001).

Conclusions: Our data suggest that employment status and treatment-related long-term side effects play a critical role in the health related quality of life outcome among Hungarian HL survivors.

Keywords: Employment; HRQoL; Hodgkin-lymphoma; Long-term side effects; Survivorship.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Ethical approval for the study was obtained from the certified Medical Ethics Committee of the University of Debrecen, Hungary. The participating patients were signed the consent.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interest.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Survivors’ employment status at completion of survey (organogram)
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
ORs and 95% CI of inactive vs. active employment status by clinical data in HL survivors of working age. The analysis was performed by binary logistic regression. Values under 1 are related to the active employment status, above 1 to inactive employment status
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Loss of work after lymphoma treatment by patient reports
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Illés Á, Jóna Á, Simon Z, Udvardy M, Miltényi Z. Novel treatment options in relapsed and refracter Hodgkin lymphomas. Orv Hetil. 2015;156:1824–1833. doi: 10.1556/650.2015.30260. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Engholm G, Ferlay J, Christensen N, et al. NORDCAN--a Nordic tool for cancer information, planning, quality control and research. Acta Oncol. 2010;49:725–736. doi: 10.3109/02841861003782017. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program. SEER Stat Fact Sheets: Hodgkin Lymphoma. National Cancer Institute. http://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/hodg.html. Accessed 15 Sept 2015.
    1. Oerlemans S, Mols F, Nijziel MR, Lybeert M, van de Poll-Franse LV. The impact of treatment, socio-demographic and clinical characteristics on health-related quality of life among Hodgkin’s and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma survivors: a systematic review. Ann Hematol. 2011;90:993–1004. doi: 10.1007/s00277-011-1274-4. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Linendoll N, Saunders T, Burns R, et al. Health-related quality of life in Hodgkin lymphoma: a systematic review. Health Quality Life Outcomes. 2016;14:114. doi: 10.1186/s12955-016-0515-6. - DOI - PMC - PubMed