Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between socio-demographic variables, especially gender, and pre-operation quality of life (QOL) in rectal cancer patients. Eighty-six recently diagnosed rectal cancer patients (51 male, 35 female) participated in this prospective study 2 or 3 days before curative surgery and completed the following instruments: Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy Scales for Colorectal Cancer (FACT-C), The Functional Living Index-Cancer (FLI-C), Brief Profile of Mood States (BPOMS), and Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance status rating(PSR). As a result, first, all patients reported a relatively high quality of life Second, Social/family, functional, and cancer-specific well-being were lower than physical and emotional well-being in FACT-C. Third, job, education, and gender were statistically significant variables, but stage was only statistically significant in BPOMS total score. Patients who were high school graduates had better QOL than any other groups. Housewives and farmers were lowest in all areas of QOL. Females experienced significantly worse FACT-C total scores, functional well-being, and cancer specific well-being than males. Fourth, for males, cancer specific domains significantly correlated with physical, social/family, and functional well-being in FACT-C, but emotional well-being correlated only physical well-being. For females, emotional well-being significantly correlated with physical, social/family, and functional well-being, but cancer-specific well-being did not significantly correlated with any other area. The present results indicated that socio-demographic variables were more important than clinical condition in pre-operation QOL. In Korean colorectal cancer population, gender differences exist in socio-demographic starus and pre-operation QOL. Therefore, we suggested developing a gender specific QOL measure and need to investigate a psychological mechanism underlying in the QOL of rectal cancer patients.