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. 2019 Jul;27(7):2487-2496.
doi: 10.1007/s00520-018-4533-2. Epub 2018 Nov 1.

How much time is left? Associations between estimations of patient life expectancy and quality of life in patients and caregivers

Kelly M Trevino  1 , Paul K Maciejewski  2 , Megan Johnson Shen  2 , Holly G Prigerson  2 , Supriya Mohile  3 , Charles Kamen  3 , Ronald M Epstein  3 , Paul Duberstein  3
Affiliations

How much time is left? Associations between estimations of patient life expectancy and quality of life in patients and caregivers

Kelly M Trevino et al. Support Care Cancer. 2019 Jul.

Abstract

Purpose: It is unclear whether life-expectancy estimates of patients with advanced cancer and their caregivers are associated with patient existential, social, or emotional quality of life (QOL) or caregiver emotional QOL.

Methods: Patients with advanced cancer and their caregivers (n = 162 dyads) reported estimates of the chance the patient would live for 2 years or more from 0% (most pessimistic) to 100% (most optimistic). They also completed self-report measures of QOL.

Results: Adjusting for sociodemographic confounds and multiple comparisons, more pessimistic caregiver and patient life-expectancy estimates were associated with worse caregiver emotional QOL and worse patient existential QOL. Discrepancies between patient and caregiver estimates were not associated with patient or caregiver QOL.

Conclusions: Pessimistic life-expectancy estimates are associated with worse existential QOL in patients and worse emotional QOL in caregivers. Prospective research to establish causal relationships is needed, and interventions to address the relationship between beliefs about life expectancy and existential and emotional QOL should be considered. Providing these interventions to patients and caregivers receiving information on life expectancy may mitigate the negative impact of life-expectancy information on patient existential quality of life.

Keywords: Cancer; Caregiving; Life-expectancy estimate; Oncology; Quality of life.

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Conflict of interest statement

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Sample sizes for assessments of estimates of patients’ life-expectancy
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Distribution of patient and caregiver estimates of patients’ life-expectancy and difference between caregiver and patient life-expectancy estimates.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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