A Predictive Model of Quality of Life for Stomach Cancer Patients with Gastrectomy

Abstract

Purpose: This study was designed to construct a predictive model to explain quality of life of stomach cancer patients with gastrectomy. Methods: Data were collected from July 10 to August 30, 2013 through survey using self-reported questionnaires. A total of 218 patients with gastrectomy was recruited from three different hospitals. Outcome variables were exogenous ones (self efficacy and social support) and endogenous ones (depression, perceived health status, self care behavior, and quality of life). Results: Goodness-of-fit of the hypothetical model was x 2 =143.37, RMSEA=.07 CFI=.95, TLI=.93 SRMR=.05. Self care behavior, depression and perceived health status had significant direct effects on quality of life. Self efficacy and social support were affected quality of life indirectly. These variables explained 67.9% of total variance of quality of life, and self-care behavior was the most influential factor for quality of life. Conclusion: The findings of this study suggested that self care behavior must be considered as an intervention strategy to improve quality of life. Also a development of a specific intervention program to promote self efficacy and control depression for patients with gastrectomy is essential to facilitate their self care behaviors. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by-nc/3.0), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Mediation Effect of Adaptation on the Quality of Life in Patients with Gastric Cancer Undergoing Gastrectomy: A Structure Equation Model

“…The two previous studies predicted the quality of life of patients with stomach cancer undergoing surgery to be high at 70.2% [12] and 67.9% [13]. However, although health-promoting and selfcare behaviors, which were used as mediating variables in these studies, influence physical and psychological adaptation [12,13], they cannot reflect adaptation from various other perspectives, including social and spiritual adaptation.…”

“…The two previous studies predicted the quality of life of patients with stomach cancer undergoing surgery to be high at 70.2% [12] and 67.9% [13]. However, although health-promoting and selfcare behaviors, which were used as mediating variables in these studies, influence physical and psychological adaptation [12,13], they cannot reflect adaptation from various other perspectives, including social and spiritual adaptation. Moreover, neither of the previous studies [12,13] investigated spiritual characteristics, although they defined the quality of life as an integrative concept combining physical, psychological, social, and spiritual factors.…”

“…Based on a literature review, the following individual characteristics were found to influence the quality of life of patients with stomach cancer undergoing surgery: perceived gastrointestinal symptoms, which are considered a physical characteristic [2,14]; self-efficacy [12,14,16] and anxiety [17,18], which are psychological characteristics; social support from family and medical staff [13,17], which are social characteristics; and spiritual well-being [18], which is a spiritual characteristic. Although adaptation involves cognitive evaluation, there exist few tools to measure the process of cognitive evaluation.…”

“…Therefore, adaptation is expected to mediate the relationship between changes experienced after surgery and quality of life of patients with stomach cancer undergoing surgery, and it will be necessary to investigate how adaptation influences the quality of life of patients with stomach cancer undergoing gastrectomy. Although two Korean studies [12,13] that predicted the quality of life of patients with stomach cancer undergoing surgery have been reported, globally, studies that have predicted the same with adaptation as a mediating variable have been extremely limited.…”

“…However, although health-promoting and selfcare behaviors, which were used as mediating variables in these studies, influence physical and psychological adaptation [12,13], they cannot reflect adaptation from various other perspectives, including social and spiritual adaptation. Moreover, neither of the previous studies [12,13] investigated spiritual characteristics, although they defined the quality of life as an integrative concept combining physical, psychological, social, and spiritual factors. In addition, patients with stomach cancer who have undergone surgery experience many physical symptoms within a year, which may negatively influence their quality of life [2,14].…”