Paliatívna medicína a liečba bolesti 1/2012

Quality of life among patients in a programme of palliative cancer care

Quality of life of the patient can be broadly defined as "a subjective assessment of their own life situation". Subjective assessment of own health status is known as the health-related quality of life. In clinical medical practice is common to assess the health of the patient and the success of any therapeutic intervention in a predominantly medical terms and use of somatic, laboratory and imaging markers. The trend of modern medicine, especially in a clinical oncology and palliative medicine is to examine the overall condition of the patient comprehensively, with the help of other aspects. More dimensional scale to assess a wide range of aspects of living a quality life. Different aspects can be in various stages of the disease and treatments differently affected. And this is information that enriches our understanding of the needs of the patient and may thus contribute significantly to improving the quality of care. The authors review article dealing with the issue of definition, concept and possibilities of measuring the quality of life of patients who were enrolled in the programme of palliative cancer care.

Keywords: quality of life, palliative medicine, oncological patient, nursing care.