Health-related QOL challenges and coping ability of patients after treatment for acute leukemia: qualitative analysis

Abstract

 Improving the post-treatment quality of life (QOL) of patients with acute leukemia is an important treatment outcome. The purpose of this study was to explore how patients with acute leukemia cope post-treatment with challenges presented by chemotherapy and hematopoietic cell transplantation. Four aspects of health-related QOL were examined: physical, emotional, functional, and social. We analyzed open-ended data from a cross-sectional QOL survey of 524 patients treated for acute leukemia to identify challenges and coping ability according to treatment method. Patients in the post-transplant graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) group reported greater physical challenges, while those in the chemotherapy group reported greater emotional challenges. The patients in the chemotherapy group and the post-transplant GVHD group experienced greater challenges related to returning to work, while the patients without post-transplant GVHD experienced greater difficulty continuing to work after returning. It is important to support patients with unpredictable long-term course, their vulnerability to infection, and late post-treatment complications, in gaining confidence in coping with physical and emotional difficulties and uncertainties caused by treatment and complications, and gaining the ability to seek the support they need to return to work.