Quality of life of older adults with cancer in Korea

ABSTRACT

This study examines the quality of life (QoL) of older adults with cancer (N = 176), by comparing them with age- and gender-matched groups without cancer (N = 176), and investigates factors associated with their QoL. The results of Medical Outcome Study Short Form-36 (MOS SF-36) showed that the study group had significantly lower scores than the noncancer group on all eight scales and on the Physical Component Summary and the Mental Component Summary. Comparison with gender and age groups revealed some differences. Optimism and social support were positively related to QoL while comorbidity, cancer-related concerns, and financial worries were inversely related.

KEYWORDS:

• Cancer
• older adults
• quality of life

Disclosure statement

No conflict of interest was declared.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This study was approved by the Hallym University Institutional Review Board (HIRB-2011-008-9).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea Grant funded by the Korean Government (NRF-2011-371-B00015). This research was supported by the Hallym University Research Fund (HRF-201212-004).