Outcome of Fatigue Management on Quality of Life of Cancer Patients undergoing Chemotherapy

Abstract

Background: Cancer-related fatigue is one of the most common consequences of cancer treatment, defined by the National Comprehensive Cancer Network as a distressing, persistent, subjective sense of physical, emotional, and/or cognitive tiredness. Fatigue is related to cancer or cancer treatment, which is not proportional to recent activity and interferes with usual functioning (Perdigão et al., 2019). Cancer-related fatigue (CRF) has been consistently rated as the most elusive, common, and severe symptom of patients undergoing chemotherapy. Despite its frequency and severity, CRF is poorly managed. Objective: To measure the effect of fatigue management on the quality of life of patients receiving chemotherapy. Method: Aquasi-experimentalstudy conducted in the outpatient of a Cancer Institute, Cairo, on a purposive sample of 110chemotherapypatients.Results:  Almost two-thirds of the studied patients (61.80%) had a low pre-intervention Quality of life while about one-quarter (25.50%) revealed a low post-intervention quality of life. Total fatigue was severe for nearly half of the sample (41.80%) in the pre-intervention phase and 10.90% had severe fatigue in the post-intervention phase. Conclusion: This study highlights that there was a highly significant improvement in patients’ quality of life post fatigue management. Also, fatigue management improves patients’ fatigue levels with significant differencespre and post-intervention. Finally, there were highly statistically significant negative correlations between fatigue level and quality of life pre-intervention (p-value<0.01). Recommendation: Further trials will clarify the understanding of the benefits of fatigue management for cancer patients. Educational programs about fatigue management should be routinely incorporated in future training to ensure improved nurses' knowledge and care provided to patients receiving chemotherapy. Further studies have to be conducted to assess predictors that may worsen fatigue levels among patients treated with chemotherapy.