Effectiveness of psychoeducational intervention to improve the quality of life of cancer patients

Introduction: Cancer is a major public health problem worldwide and it acts as a negative stressor threatening lives, exerting serious impact on the patients' physical and mental health and it affects the quality of life of the individual. Objective: The study was undertaken with the objective to assess the effectiveness of psychoeducational intervention to improve the quality of life of cancer patients. Material and Method: Randomized control trial was undertaken for the patients with head and neck cancer undergoing radiotherapy treatment. Post test only control group design was adopted and 50 patients were randomized into the intervention group (n = 25) and the control group (n = 25). In addition to routine radiotherapy, patients in the intervention group received a purposely designed weekly psychoeducational intervention for 5 weeks i.e. once a week for one hour session, whereas those in the control group underwent radiotherapy only. Quality of life of the patients was assessed using the standardized questionnaire “European Organization for the Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) QLQ-C30.” Results and conclusion: In the functional scale of quality of life, the emotional functioning (p=<0.0001) and social functioning (p=0.004) were significantly higher in the intervention group compared with those in the control group which represents a high / healthy level of functioning in that area. In the Symptom scales/ items, financial difficulties (p=<0.0001) was more in the control group than the intervention group. The overall quality of life scores in all the other areas also were significantly improved in patients who received the psychoeducational intervention compared with those in the control group.