Health-Related Quality of Life Profile in Relation To Chemotherapy-Induced Nausea and Vomiting Among Breast Cancer Patients

Objective: despite the availability of modern anti-emetics, chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (cinv) symptoms remain distressing to a high number of cancer patients. this study intended to (1) describe the incidence of cinv and anti-emetic usage; (2) assess the health-related quality of life (hrqol) and correlate its components with global health status; (3) evaluate hrqol status in relation to cinv among breast cancer patients receiving chemotherapy. methods: a cross sectional study was conducted in two government hospitals located in the east coast of peninsular malaysia (terengganu, kelantan). the morrow assessment of nausea and emesis follow-up (mane-fu) and european organization for research and treatment of cancer quality of life questionnaire (eortc qlq-c30) were administered. descriptive statistics and non-parametric tests were employed (spss 16). results: respondents included 41 female patients (age = 49 ± 9.6 years; malay = 92.7%; no family history of breast cancer = 68.3% and on moderately emetogenic chemotherapy = 97.6%). majority of patients experienced nausea during or after chemotherapy (90.2%) and rated it as ‘severe’. most patients had taken anti-emetic (87.8%) and considered it ‘somewhat useful’. the median score for global health status was 50 (iqr= 16.7). emotional functioning, fatigue and pain correlated fairly with hrqol (rs= +0.435; -0.417; -0.387 respectively). patients with ‘a lot’ and ‘moderate’ nausea displayed significantly more fatigue compared to those with little nausea (p=0.029). those who experienced vomiting reported worse hrqol profile compared to those who did not (p=0.011). conclusion: these findings generally ascertained that cinv remains poorly controlled and significantly interferes with hrqol, providing rooms for improvements in therapeutic intervention