The impact of will to live and belief in curability on the subjective well-being of patients with advanced cancer

Abstract

For patients with metastatic, incurable cancer the prognosis itself and its acceptance may influence their subjective well-being. This paper addresses the issue of what patients with incurable cancer should be told about their disease. It considers whether the patients' will to live and perceptions of the information their doctor provides may have consequences for well-being. The analysis is of a subset of data from a study of patients diagnosed with metastatic, incurable cancer who were recruited prospectively from one of several treatment centres in south-east Queensland, Australia. The sample is restricted to 46 patients with evaluable data at three points in time: within two weeks of diagnosis of metastatic, incurable cancer (T1); approximately three months after enrolment in the study (T2); and within eight weeks of death (T3). The results examine the impact of the patients' will to live and beliefs about curability of their disease on their quality of life. The will to live leads to an optimistic assessment of curability, which in turn enhances assessments of subjective well-being or quality of life as patients near death.