Services on Demand
Journal
Article
Indicators
Cited by SciELO
Access statistics
Related links
Cited by Google
Similars in SciELO
Similars in Google
Share
Avances en Psicología Latinoamericana
Print version ISSN 1794-4724
Abstract
SANCHEZ, Ricardo; SIERRA, Fabio Alexander and MARTIN, Elena. For Patients Diagnosed with Cancer what is Qulity of Life?. Av. Psicol. Latinoam. [online]. 2015, vol.33, n.3, pp.321-385. ISSN 1794-4724. https://doi.org/10.12804/apl33.03.2015.01.
Objective: To evaluate the concept of quality of life from the patient´s perspective. Method: 1029 patients having different diagnoses of cancer were evaluated using an open-ended question (How would you define Quality of Life?). The text of the individual replies was processed in order to perform lexicometric analysis which includes correspondence analysis. Results: Graphical forms and repeated segments that are most frequent are related to the concepts of well-being, health, functionality, good nutrition and spiritual and family aspects. These concepts change depending on type of cancer. Correspondence analysis suggests three domains: one related to care, the other having to do with well-being and another one dealing with nutrition and social and family aspects. There was an association between these dimensions and type of cancer (dimension 1: pediatric patients; dimension 2: breast cancer; and dimension 3: patients with prostrate cancer). In the multidimensional space that was constituted by graphical forms and repeated segments the diagnosis of pediatric cancer differs from others types of cancer. Conclusion: The design of instruments for measuring quality of live in patients having a cancer diagnosis should incorporate disease specific characteristics.
Keywords : Quality of life; neoplasm; concept formation.