Quality of life of cancer children-adolescents with and without fatigue

Objective: To compare the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) scores of children and adolescents hospitalized with cancer who had and did not have fatigue and to correlate fatigue and HRQoL. Method: This is a cross-sectional study carried out for 48 months in the onco-hematology sector of a public hospital located in the interior of Sao Paulo, with 63 children and adolescents with cancer. To measure fatigue and HRQoL, participants completed the instruments Pediatric Quality of Life InventoryTM Multidimensional Fatigue Scale and Pediatric Quality of Life InventoryTM Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory - acute version - in the generic module and cancer module. Data were analyzed using descriptive, bivariate and multivariate statistics. Results: The means of the total fatigue scores (61.2 +/- 16.3) and HRQoL (generic: 61.5 +/- 20.5; cancer: 61.2 +/- 16.3) were low, demonstrating that children and adolescents with cancer are fatigued (p=0.000) and with low quality of life (p=0.000). In the regression model, fatigue could be explained in 61.25% by the variables emotional functioning (p=0.0110), school functioning (p=0.0004) and cognitive difficulties (p=0.0017). Participants without fatigue had better mean HRQoL score when compared to the group with fatigue. Conclusion: Children and adolescents hospitalized with cancer have a low quality of life and high levels of fatigue. Furthermore, the relationship between some HRQoL dimensions and fatigue is positive, indicating that the worse the school and emotional functioning and the greater the cognitive difficulties, the greater the fatigue.