When a person is diagnosed to have cancer, that he has reached the terminal stages of his illness, he suffers the most. Adding to this stress patient and the family members have a difficult time to decide over the care of the patient with advanced cancer, to prefer a hospice or care at home. Assessment of the quality of life (QOL) of advanced cancer patients can provide helpful information on disease and treatment related effects and also on patients own experiences. Hence the investigator felt the need to do the study to compare the quality of life of the advanced cancer patients in hospice vs. home care. The study was conducted among 90 (30 in each group) advanced cancer patients in Shanti Avedna Hospice in Delhi and Follow up patients of CANSUPPORT in their own residence. Longitudinal follow up research design was used and the samples were selected by purposive sampling. The demographic variables were used to assess the sample characteristics and European Organization of research and the Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire -Cancer 30 to measure quality of life on advanced cancer patients. The study revealed that in Global Health Scale (GHS), the higher score (63.43) was in hospice and when hospice (p<0.05) and NGO assisted home care (p<0.05) were compared with home care alone GHS score had significant difference. In symptom scales, Hospice had lower score. Hence the study concluded that Patients who were in Hospice scored significantly better in Quality of Life, as compared to NGO assisted home care and home care alone.
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