Correlates of health-related quality of life in upper aerodigestive tract cancer patients

Reflecting a limited understanding of the definition and determinants of he alth-related quality of life (HRQoL), the majority of research in this fiel d has concentrated upon the effect of disease- and treatment-related variab les. That work specifically investigating HRQoL among upper aerodigestive t ract (UADT) cancer patients is no exception to this observation. Treating s ubject-related and nonsubject-related variables separately, the aim of this study was to investigate predictors of global HRQoL rating in a sample of UADT cancer patients, concentrating upon the relative importance of sociode mographic and clinical variables. A cross-sectional study design was used w ith a sample of 188 UADT cancer patients. Global HRQoL was assessed using t he EORTC QLQ-C30 instrument, global domain (global QoL). Other study variab les were collected by subject interview and chart review. Two multivariate regression models were independently developed, containing, respectively, s ubject-rated and nonsubject rated variables. In the model containing subjec t-rated predictors of global QoL, emotional, breathing, physical, financial , pain and appetite problems were significant predictors (F = 14.6, p < 0.0 001 and r(2) = 0.54). Among non-subject-rated sociodemographic and clinical variables tested, unemployment, older age, female gender, being dentate an d a more advanced disease stage predicted worse global QoL rating, while or al as opposed to pharyngeal or laryngeal cancer predicted a better global Q oL rating (F = 5.1, p < 0.0001 and r(2) = 0.21). In the latter model, a gre ater proportion of the variance was explained by sociodemographic variables than by clinical variables.