Quality of life and factors related to perceived satisfaction with qualityof life after allogeneic bone marrow transplantation

The quality of life after bone marrow transplantation (BMT) was studied in 109 adult allogeneic BMT recipients transplanted on at the Helsinki Univers ity Central hospital for a haematological malignancy. Physical, functional, emotional and social well-being was measured on the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy Scale (FACT-BMT) and a shortened version of the Profile o f Mood States Scale (POMS) and by the MOS social support survey and a Brief Measure of Social Support (SSQ6). The results of the present study replica te those of previous investigations by finding that physical well-being, ed ucational level. age at BMT and social support have an impact on the percei ved quality of life of BMT patients. Our results indicate that these factor s have a varying impact at different time points during the post-BMT recove ry process. During the first three years after BMT, physical well-being pro ved to be a highly significant (P <0.001) factor for perceived life satisfa ction. Moreover, physical well-being showed an average significant improvem ent after the first post-BMT year. The percentage of the recipients experie ncing the highest levels of satisfaction with life increased from 51%; duri ng the first year after BMT to 81% for those patients five years post-BMT. One year after BMT 75.6% of the BMT recipients were able to work, 67.8% of the patients were actively participating in work/school and 7.8% were unemp loyed.