Evaluation of Quality of Life in the Elderly With Chemotherapy-Induced Peripheral Neuropathy in Selected Educational Centers of Iran University of Medical Sciences in 2020

Background and Aim: Today's knowledge is looking for a way to prolong life. Scientific advances to provide a longer life are challenging due to the problems that a person faces with increasing age in different systems. This adds to the importance of paying attention to the phenomenon of aging and having physiological and psycho-social information of the elderly person and his life situation for optimal care of this period and prevention of possible problems. With the increase in life expectancy that has occurred due to advances in the recognition and treatment of diseases and rising health, the phenomenon of aging and chronic diseases occur. Also old age is associated with life-threatening factors such as cancer, which has various physical, psychological and social complications. The growing number of cancer patients worldwide and in our country, has made it a health problem and combating it has become one of the health care priorities. Chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy is a complication of chemotherapy and is a serious complication that presents with damage to distal areas and a pattern of symmetrical diffusion of peripheral nerves and may be caused by different groups of drugs such as chemotherapy drugs. The prevalence of chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy is much higher in patients who are receiving several chemotherapy drugs (this is true in elderly patients) and its negative effects on various aspects of patients' lives are undeniable. Untreated symptoms of peripheral neuropathy usually cause pain and dysfunction in patients' daily lives, which can affect the quality of life of this group of patients. Despite the importance of this issue, its evaluation has often been neglected by researchers, health professionals and staff, and limited research has been done in this area, especially in the elderly. Therefore, the present study was designed and conducted to determine the quality of life of the elderly with peripheral neuropathy caused by chemotherapy in selected educational and medical centers of Iran University of Medical Sciences in 2020.  Method: The present study is a descriptive cross-sectional study. The research samples were 170 elderly people with chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy referred to Hazrat Rasool Akram (PBUH), Firoozgar and Firoozabadi who, having the conditions for inclusion in the study (being over 60 years old, ability to respond to Have questions and fluency in Persian, at least one month has passed since the start of chemotherapy, no diabetes, chronic kidney failure, burgers, chronic liver failure, bone and vertebral fractures, AIDS, Lyme, Shingle, syndrome Guillain-Barre and systemic lupus erythematosus (one of the complications of which can be neuropathy) (no cognitive impairment (score 7 and above on the AMT scale)) and after obtaining informed written consent, were selected by convenience sampling. In the research environment, while stating the objectives of the research to the authorities and assuring the elderly to keep the information confidential, they obtained informed written consent from the elderly to participate in the research. Data collection tools included demographic characteristics form, Lipad Quality of Life Questionnaire (LEIPAD) which were completed within 3 months. This questionnaire is designed as a Likert and each question has four options that are scored from zero (worst case) to three (best case). The minimum score is zero and the maximum is 93. A score between 0 and 31 indicates a poor quality of life for the elderly. A score between 31 and 46 indicates a moderate quality of life for the elderly. A score above 46 indicates a high quality of life for the elderly. To analyze the data from descriptive statistics (frequency and percentage of frequency for qualitative variables of research and minimum and maximum, mean and standard deviation for quantitative variables of research) and inferential statistics (independent t-test, analysis of variance, Pearson and Kroos correlation coefficient) used. The collected data were analyzed by SPSS statistical software version 16. Significance level was considered less than 0.05. Results: The mean age of the participating elderly was 66.69 ± 6.49, which according to the classification of the World Health Organization were in the group of young elderly. Among the participants, 51.8% were female and 48.2% were male. Quality of life was 81.8% of the elderly in the high level, 15.9% in the medium level and 2.3% in the low level. The results showed that the quality of life of the studied elderly had a statistically significant relationship with gender. Income adequacy had a statistically significant relationship with quality of life (P = 0.002) and also the quality of life in the elderly with relatively sufficient income was significantly higher than the elderly with insufficient income(p = 0.001). Also, the mean score obtained in the working elderly was significantly higher than the housewife (p = 0.024). Duration of the disease was another variable that had a statistically significant relationship with quality of life (p = 0.019) and the mean score of quality of life in the elderly with a duration of less than one year was significantly higher than the elderly with a duration of more than 5 years was (p = 0.041). The results showed that the duration of the disease less than one year with a standard coefficient of 0.304 had the greatest effect on the quality of life of the elderly.  Conclusion: In this study, the quality of life of the elderly with chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy was observed. Quality of life was also significantly associated with variables such as gender, income adequacy, employment status, duration of illness. The quality of life was high among the elderly male, With sufficient income, employed, and ill for less than a year. Also, the quality of life in social, mental, anxiety and depression, life satisfaction, physical, self-care dimensions were desirable, but in the sexual dimension, they had an undesirable quality of life. It is believed that the results of this study will significantly help in understanding the health status and needs of the elderly to promote health and geriatric services based on health-related needs, Therefore, the development of epidemiological and clinical studies in this field is an important step forward.