Determinants Affecting Quality of Life: Implications for Pharmacist Counseling for Patients with Breast Cancer in Japan

Abstract

Although pharmacist counseling assumes an important role in the clinical setting, oncology pharmacy practitioners worldwide currently lack adequate guidance. This study aimed to identify the determinants and causal relationships that affect quality of life (QOL) in breast cancer patients before adjuvant systemic therapy for improving pharmacist counseling and guidance. This study analyzed 93 postoperative patients with breast cancer before pharmacist counseling for adjuvant systemic therapy. Patients were asked to complete questionnaires to assess QOL (the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire C30 [EORTC QLQ-C30] and its breast cancer module [EORTC QLQ-BR23]) before pharmacist counseling. We analyzed factors affecting QOL by stepwise multiple linear regression analysis and evaluated causal association using path analysis. In the multiple linear regression model using variables selected by stepwise analysis, the factors affecting global health status (GHS)/QOL included fatigue, emotional functioning, systemic therapy side effects, future perspectives, and appetite loss. In the path analysis model, GHS/QOL were strongly influenced by fatigue directly; and emotional functioning, directly and indirectly via other factors. Our results indicated that fatigue and emotional functioning are strong factors affecting QOL. These factors may be able to predict poor QOL before initiating adjuvant systemic therapy. Thus, our findings suggest that these factors may be potentially useful for pharmacist counseling at the beginning of adjuvant systemic therapy.

Quality of Life Assessment in Cancer Patients of Regional Centre of Hyderabad City

“…The maximum symptoms experienced by patients were found to be fatigue (48.6±1.66), followed by pain (48.06±1.95), sleep (46.13±2.82) and loss of appetite (45.24±2.54) as represented in Figure 2e. Our results were in concordance with the study conducted by Kawaguchi et al, 2012and Charalambous et al, 2016(Kawaguchi et al, 2012Charalambous et al, 2016).…”

Relationship Between Spirituality, Meaning in Life, Psychological Distress, Wish for Hastened Death, and Their Influence on Quality of Life in Palliative Care Patients

“…The influence of depression on QOL was stressed in other studies. 31 Cramarossa et al 32 and Kawaguchi et al 33 identified emotional functioning as one of the most significant predictors of worse overall QOL in cancer patients. It is worth mentioning that depression was also highlighted as the greatest determinant on QOL in a general older population when considering a large panel of psychosocial and health factors.…”

Knowledge, attitudes and barriers towards breast cancer health education among community pharmacists

“…Community pharmacists are widely accessible healthcare providers for almost all segments of the population. [24][25][26][27][28][29][30] Recently, the scope of pharmacy practice had progressed towards a patient-focused approach rather than a productfocused approach, enabling pharmacists to expand health services towards patient-oriented activities instead of conventional drug-oriented services. [25,26] Earlier reports indicated that community pharmacists are potential contributors to health promotion activities taking into consideration their approachability and reliability.…”

“…To achieve this, it is essential for community pharmacists to have comprehensive knowledge, positive attitudes, willingness and necessary tools to provide professional pharmaceutical care services. [25,[27][28][29][30]34] Despite national efforts to increase recognition and awareness of breast cancer, multiple population-based studies among women in Jordan showed that screening rates remain relatively low. [35,36] Among a nationally representative sample of Jordanian women, breast cancer screening practices indicated low prevalence of using mammography, CBE and BSE among women aged 35 years and older.…”