Psychosocial functioning and quality of life in patients with primary brain tumors

Abstract

Perceived quality of life (QOL) was evaluated in a group of 50 patients with primary brain tumors. Participants completed two QOL measures and a demographic profile. Age was found not to be an important factor in differentiating QOL in these patients. All areas of QOL were found to be affected adversely by one or more of five factors: being female, being divorced, having bilateral tumor involvement, having received chemotherapy, and having a poor performance status. Pearson product-moment correlations conducted on the subscale and total scores of the two QOL instruments revealed that the two scales measure different QOL aspects and overlap in only a few areas. This may be related to the different measurement paradigms that these two instruments represent. This study is one of the first to evaluate the multidimensional aspects of QOL in patients with primary brain tumors, an understudied group. A prospective study of QOL in this group, already underway at the authors' institution, is needed to evaluate comprehensively the effect of different treatments and interventions on the QOL functioning of primary brain tumor patients. Additionally, this study shows that the choice of QOL instruments is very important and needs to be driven by the research question.