Association Between Quality of Life, Demographic Characteristics, Physical Symptoms, and Unmet Needs in Inpatients Receiving End-of-Life Care A Cross-sectional Study

Quality-of-life assessment is an important component of end-of-life care. The objective of this study was to evaluate the quality of life of patients in the final stage of their illness and its association with their demographic characteristics, physical symptoms, and unmet needs during their care. For data collection, the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality-of-Life Questionnaire tool for quality of life measurements and the Patient Needs Assessment in Palliative Care questionnaire for determination of unmet needs were used. The study comprised 349 inpatients in the final stage of their illness. Differences were found in quality-of-life assessment with respect to the type of illness, gender, and age of the patients. There was an association between lower quality of life, symptom burden (pain), worse functional status, and unmet needs in the physical and psychosocial areas. Therefore, quality of life of terminal patients is tightly associated with good symptom management and high-quality nursing care.