A influência da dor e da espiritualidade na qualidade de vida das mulheres com câncer de mama

Abstract

Breast cancer can lead to symptoms such as pain, fatigue, decreased functional capacity, anxiety, and stress which can compromise patients' quality of life (QoL). Through the illness process spirituality can be a coping resource that could be associated with better QoL. In this context, the overall study objective is to evaluate the influence of pain and spirituality on QoL in women living with breast cancer. This is an observational, cross-sectional and quantitative study, carried out from July 2014 to April 2015, in a hospital cancer center reference at Natal / RN. A sample of 400 women with breast cancer was evaluated in three groups: 118 without metastasis (MTX), 160 with locoregional MTX and 122 with MTX at a distance. A complementary questionnaire addressing sociodemographic and clinical variables and Instruments were applied: the European Organization for Research and Treatment for Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire-Core 30 (EORTC QLQ-C30) and a disease-specific module for Breast Cancer BR23 to evaluate QoL, Spiritual Perspective Scale to assess spirituality and Short-Form McGill Pain Questionnaire was used to to describe pain. Data were analyzed by descriptive and inferential statistics. The Fisher and Chi-square tests were used to verify the existence of dependence relationship between spirituality and sociodemographic and clinical variables; ANOVA assessed the association between QoL and clinical variables, and the Tukey test was applied to indicate the magnitude of this association. The results showed a high prevalence of pain (71.7%) in patients and identified an association between the presence of pain and QoL. In the Global Health Scale (GHS) by the EORTC QLQC30 the group without MTX, mean 55.3 (SD=24.8) for those who had pain, 69.7 (SD=19.2) for no pain (p = 0.001); MTX locoregional, with pain had score 59.1 (SD=21.3), and those without pain 72.4 (SD=18.6) (p<0.001). In the MTX distance group, patients with mean pain 48.6 (SD=23.1) and 67.6 (SD=20.4) without pain (p=0.002). Considering spirituality, regardless of disease status, evangelical women showed greater spirituality: in the group without MTX (p=0.013), with locoregional MTX (p=0.011) and in the MTX group at a distance (p = 0.009). When the level of spirituality was analyzed associated with the EORTC scales, 39.8% of patients without MTX had a higher level of spirituality, both in the Symptom Scale (p=0.04) and GHS (p=0.02). In conclusion, we found that breast cancer was associated with decreased functional capacity, compromising the QoL of women with breast cancer; patients with higher levels of spirituality had higher values of QoL, regardless of the presence or absence of MTX, and that pain was very prevalent in the sample, decreasing the QoL of women with breast cancer.