Acta Dermato-Venereologica 99-10CompleteContent | Page 32
SHORT COMMUNICATION
933
Satisfaction with Information Provision and Health-related Quality of Life in Basal and Squamous
Cell Carcinoma Patients: A Cross-sectional Population-based Study
Rick WAALBOER-SPUIJ 1 , Loes M. HOLLESTEIN 1,2 , Tamar E. C. NIJSTEN 1 and Lonneke V. VAN DE POLL-FRANSE 2–4 ; on
behalf of the BaSQoL Group
1
Department of Dermatology, Erasmus MC University Medical Centre, Postbus 2040, NL-3000 CA, Rotterdam, 2 Department of Research,
Netherlands Comprehensive Cancer Organization (IKNL), Utrecht, 3 CoRPS - Centre of Research on Psychology in Somatic diseases, Department
of Medical and Clinical Psychology, Tilburg University, Tilburg, and 4 Division of Psychosocial Research and Epidemiology, Netherlands Cancer
Institute, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. E-mail: [email protected]
Accepted May 22, 2019; E-published May 23, 2019
The incidence of keratinocytic carcinomas (KC) (basal
cell carcinoma (BCC) and squamous cell carcinoma
(SCC)) is high and further increasing. It is important to
identify patients with high disease burden (1, 2). The Basal
and Squamous Cell Carcinoma Quality of Life (BaSQoL)
questionnaire was developed to measure disease specific
Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) (3). In other can-
cer patients it was shown that better information provision
is associated with better HRQoL (4). Information provi-
sion is an important aspect of supportive care: increasing
knowledge about disease and treatment leads to better
illness perception, which could lead to a better HRQoL
(5). This relation has not been described in KC patients,
and may differ from other cancers, due to low mortality
and low impact treatment. This study aims to assess the
satisfaction with received information and the association
with HRQoL in population-based sample of KC patients in
the Netherlands. We hypothesized that, patients satisfied
with received information report a better HRQoL.
specific quality of life was measured by the EORTC QLQ-Core
30 (EORTC QLQ-C30) (8). The disease-specific BaSQoL has 5
subscales (3). Higher scores implicate a higher HRQoL impact. The
self-reported comorbidity questionnaire measured comorbidity (9).
Statistical analyses
Mean values were compared with independent sample t-tests bet-
ween patients who were satisfied and dissatisfied with information.
Bar charts display the BaSQoL and EORTC QLQ-C30 subscales,
stratified by satisfaction with information provision. The associa-
tion between HRQoL (outcome) and satisfaction with information
(covariate) was assessed with multivariable linear regression ana-
lysis. Other a priori selected covariates included: age, time since
diagnosis, sex, education, occupation, partnership, comorbidity,
and type of tumour. Multiple imputations (n = 25) were used to ac-
count for the missing data (all covariates and outcomes included).
Multiple linear regression assumptions were met.
p-values < 0.05 (two-sided) from regression models were con-
sidered statistically significant. All other p-values were corrected
(Benjamini-Hochberg procedure) and considered statistically
significant if p < 0.033 (two-sided) (10). Analyses were performed
in SPSS, Version 21.0 (Armonk, New York: IBM Corporation).
METHODS RESULTS
A cross-sectional study was performed among 1,173 patients, selec-
ted from the Southern region of the population-based Netherlands
Cancer Registry (NCR). Data were collected during the validation
of the BaSQoL (3, 6). Socio-demographic data were collected and
disease specific data were gathered from the NCR. Unfortunately,
there were no data on the provided information available.
Satisfaction with the information provision was measured with
the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer
Quality of Life Questionnaire INFO25 (EORTC QLQ-INFO25)
(7). For this study, the 4-point Likert scale of the item ‘satisfaction
with information provision’ was dichotomized into satisfied (‘quite
a bit’ – ‘very much’) and dissatisfied (‘not at all’ – ‘a little’). Cancer- Of the 1,173 patients, 721 (61%) completed the ques-
tionnaire. Patient and tumour characteristics are shown
in Table SI 1 . There was no difference in satisfaction
with information in tumour type (BCC vs SCC) or
BCC subtype, facial tumour, not having a partner and
having more comorbidities (Table SI 1 ). Thirty-seven
percent (84/225) dissatisfied and 7% (28/416) satisfied
patients indicated that they had wanted more informa-
tion about skin cancer in general, causes, treatment,
follow-up and how to recognize new lesions. Three
percent (n = 24) wanted less information. The
information received was considered helpful
in 68% (n = 417). HRQoL was statistically
significantly lower among patients who were
dissatisfied with information provision (Fig. 1).
Satisfaction with information provision was
associated with behaviour, diagnosis and treat
ment, worries and appearance BaSQoL subscales
with negative beta values (–0.3 to –0.1), indica-
Fig. 1. Mean with standard error. Basal and squamous cell
carcinoma quality of life (a) and European Organisation for Research
and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire-C30 subscale
scores and satisfaction with information provision (b).
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license. www.medicaljournals.se/acta
Journal Compilation © 2019 Acta Dermato-Venereologica.
doi: 10.2340/00015555-3226
Acta Derm Venereol 2019; 99: 933–934