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A poorer nutritional status impacts quality of life in a sample population of elderly cancer patients

Rios, T.C., de Oliveira, L.P.M., da Costa, M.L.V., da Silva, R.S., Roriz, A.K.C., Ramos, L.B. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9456-8558 and Bueno, Allain ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9456-8558 (2021) A poorer nutritional status impacts quality of life in a sample population of elderly cancer patients. Health and Quality of Life Outcomes, 19 (90). ISSN 1477-7525

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Abstract

Rationale
Quality of Life (QoL) is impaired in cancer, and the elderly are particularly vulnerable to malnutrition. A diagnosis of cancer in elderly patients further exacerbates risks of negative health outcomes. Here we investigated associations between QoL and nutritional status in a sample population of mostly socially deprived elderly cancer patients.

Method
432 cancer patients were recruited for this cross-sectional study at point of admission to a tertiary referral hospital for cancer treatment. Patient-generated subjective global assessment (PG-SGA) assessed nutritional status. Functional assessment of cancer therapy- general (FACT-G) quantified QoL. Relationship between PG-SGA and QoL was assessed by Spearman correlation. PG-SGA outcomes were compared against FACT-G scores employing Mann–Whitney test. Bivariate Linear Regression Model was employed to investigate influences of sociodemographic, clinical and nutritional status upon QoL.

Results
37.5% of participants were malnourished or at risk. 39% were illiterate and 54.6% had family income lower than minimum wage. Malnourished patients showed lower FACT-G scores (76.8 vs. 84.7; p = 0.000). Poor nutritional diagnosis was inversely correlated with all QoL domains. Bivariate regression analysis showed that lower PG-SGA scores (βo =  − 1.00; p = 0.000) contributed to FACT-G score deterioration, the male gender showed better QoL scores, and other clinical and sociodemographic variables did not show relationship.

Conclusion
Poorer nutritional status was significantly associated with worsened physical, social, emotional and functional well-being QoL domains in elderly cancer patients. Poorer nutritional status is an independent risk factor for worsened QoL. Future policies aimed at particularly vulnerable populations may improve QoL and health outcomes.

Item Type: Article
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This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.

Uncontrolled Discrete Keywords: FACT-G, cancer, elderly, PG-SGA, malnutrition
Divisions: College of Health, Life and Environmental Sciences > School of Science and the Environment
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Copyright Info: Open Access article
Depositing User: Allain Bueno
Date Deposited: 22 Mar 2021 12:32
Last Modified: 22 Mar 2021 12:32
URI: https://eprints.worc.ac.uk/id/eprint/10318

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