Tehrani Afsaneh Malekpour, Farajzadegan Ziba, Rajabi Fariborz Mokarian, Zamani Ahmad Reza
Resident of Community Medicine, Department of Community Medicine, School of Medicine, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran.
J Res Med Sci. 2011 May;16(5):658-65.
Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women. It seems that breast cancer patients benefit from meeting someone who had a similar experience. This study evaluated the effect of two kinds of interventions (peer support and educational program) on quality of life in breast cancer patients.
This study was a controlled clinical trial on women with non-metastatic breast cancer. The patients studied in two experimental and control groups. Experimental group took part in peer support program and control group passed a routine educational program during 3 months. The authors administered SF-36 for evaluating the quality of life pre-and post intervention. Also, patient's adherence was assessed by means of a simple checklist.
Two groups were similar with respect of age, age of onset of the disease, duration of having breast cancer, marital status, type of the treatment receiving now, and type of the received surgery. In the control group, there were statistically significant improvements in body pain, role-physical, role-emotional and social functioning. In experimental group, role-physical, vitality, social functioning, role-emotional and mental health showed significant improvement. Vitality score and mental health score in experimental group was significantly higher than that of the control group, both with p < 0.001. Also, it was shown that adherence was in high levels in both groups and no significant difference was seen after the study was done.
According to the results of this study, supporting the patients with breast cancer by forming peer groups or by means of educational sessions could improve their life qualities.
乳腺癌是女性中最常见的癌症。乳腺癌患者似乎能从与有相似经历的人交流中获益。本研究评估了两种干预措施（同伴支持和教育项目）对乳腺癌患者生活质量的影响。
本研究是一项针对非转移性乳腺癌女性的对照临床试验。患者被分为两个实验组和对照组。实验组参加同伴支持项目，对照组在3个月内接受常规教育项目。作者使用SF-36量表在干预前后评估生活质量。此外，通过简单的检查表评估患者的依从性。
两组在年龄、发病年龄、患乳腺癌时间、婚姻状况、目前接受的治疗类型和接受的手术类型方面相似。在对照组中，身体疼痛、生理功能、情感职能和社会功能有统计学上的显著改善。在实验组中，生理功能、活力、社会功能、情感职能和心理健康有显著改善。实验组的活力得分和心理健康得分显著高于对照组，均p < 0.001。此外，结果显示两组的依从性都很高，研究结束后未见显著差异。
根据本研究结果，通过组建同伴小组或开展教育课程来支持乳腺癌患者可以提高他们的生活质量。
