Avaliação da qualidade de vida em pacientes com câncer de mama em tratamento quimioterápico, em uma clínica oncológica privada de Governador Valadares – Minas Gerais

Abstract

Breast cancer is one of the most feared diseases in the female world due to the significant impact on the various dimensions of the woman's quality of life due to the disease itself, treatment or mastectomy. Therefore, the objective of this study was to evaluate sociodemographic and clinical characteristics, physical activity, surgical procedure and to verify the impact of chemotherapy treatment on the quality of life related to the health of women with breast cancer in a treatment in a private oncological clinic of the municipality of Governador Valadares, Minas Gerais, from March to April 2018. This is a descriptive and cross-sectional qualitative study of 20 women with breast cancer. Quality of life data were obtained through the application of the structured questionnaire European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire "Core" and other data through access to the patients' medical records. For the analysis of the quality of life data, the scores were calculated according to the Manual of Punctuation of the questionnaire and the other data were organized into categorical and numerical variables and using the frequency and percentages (%). The results showed a predominance of women over 50 years (55%), from Governador Valadares (60%), with upper or middle level (85%), and most of the patients reported practicing physical activity (60%). Regarding the laterality of the tumor, it was observed that the majority of the tumors affected the left breast (55%) and that no patient presented tumor in both breasts. Most of the patients studied went through some kind of surgical intervention (80%), with predominance of mastectomy (50%). At the time of the interview there was a higher proportion of patients at the beginning (1-6 months) and with more than 2 years of treatment. The scores of the quality of life of the physical function (80.0) and functional (76.8) and symptoms of pain (18.3), loss of appetite (16.7) and diarrhea (18.3) were classified as very good and the scores of the emotional (61,7), cognitive (63,0) and social functions (70,0) and fatigue (31,7), nausea and vomiting symptoms (30.0), dyspnea (30.0), insomnia (28.3) and constipation (45.0) and the financial difficulties (48.3) were classified as good. It can be concluded that the patients evaluated in the present study have a satisfactory quality of life.