Relationship of Knowledge, Attitude, Practice (KAP) and Demographic Factors with Quality of Life among Urban Colorectal Cancer Patients in Malaysia

Background: there is an increasing incidence of colorectal cancer in malaysia. theaim of this study is to evaluate sociodemographic data, knowledge, awareness, practicelevel, and quality of life in colorectal cancer patients.methods: a cross-sectional study was conducted from december 2011 to june 2012that involved 105 patients diagnosed with colorectal cancer at four chosen tertiarygovernment hospitals. the european organization for research and treatment ofcancer questionnaire was used to measure quality of life and consisted of globalhealth status, five functional scales, six single items and three symptoms scores. a novelknowledge, awareness and practice questionnaire toward colorectal cancer containedthree sections of 36 closed-ended questions on knowledge, and ten questions onawareness and practice.results: the mean age of the respondents was 58.30±12.64 years. most respondentswere diagnosed with dukes’ d (46.7%) stage. patients’ age showed significantassociation (spearman correlation test) with emotional (p=0.048) and social functioning(p=0.036). indians showed significant association with global health status (p=0.007),emotional functioning (p=0.039) and pain (p=0.009). there was a significant associationbetween females with nausea and vomiting (p=0.015) and lower household income withdiarrhea (p=0.042). cancer stage showed the most significant association with patients’quality of life with cognitive functioning (p=0.030), social functioning (p=0.006), pain(p=0.044) and financial impact (p=0.047). although the mean scores for knowledge(24.53±2.36), awareness (29.72±2.09) and practice (24.05±3.65)were high, they werenot associated with quality of life. conclusion: our research showed that patients with advanced age and disease havelower quality of life. raising awareness by educating the public and implementing anationwide screening program would allow early detection and treatment of colorectalcancer, thus avoiding deterioration of quality of life.