THE EFFECT OF DESIGNED EXERCISE PROGRAMME ON QUALITY OF LIFE IN WOMEN WITH BREAST CANCER RECEIVING CHEMOTHERAPY

The Effect of Designed Exercise Programme on Quality of Life in Women with Breast Cancer Receiving Chemotherapy



The Effect of Designed Exercise Programme on Quality of Life in Women with Breast Cancer Receiving Chemotherapy

Introduction

Breast cancer is the greatest concern in women health, because it is the most common cancer and is second after lung and bronchus cancer. Women with breast cancer receiving chemotherapy suffer from a variety of side effects during diagnosis and treatment process; especially fatigue is the most common, and disturbing symptom that has profound impact on quality of life. Studies examining the prevalence of fatigue among the patients have found that up to 99% experience some level of fatigue that range from moderate to severe. Many of the patients may experience persistent fatigue as a long-term side effect of adjuvant chemotherapy treatment and there is growing evidence to suggest that fatigue may persist for months or even years after completion of breast cancer treatment.

In addition, unnecessary rest and prolonged rest can contribute significantly to the development of fatigue and weakness (Crook, 2004). Fatigue influences well-being sense, daily performance, activities of daily living, relationships with others, and complication with treatment. Therefore, it is necessary to identify this disabling symptom and taking some steps toward managing it in order to improve the quality of life. In this regard evaluating fatigue in patients with cancer has become a global issue, and proposing effective interventions of managing fatigue in patients with cancer has been considered by oncology nursing society as a priority for research (Jong, 2002).

Above the all more new randomized, clinical trials are needed to provides more convincing evidence on the effectiveness of caring interventions. Since Previous, study limitations about cancer fatigue call for further research on the effect of exercise on fatigue of patients with cancer receiving treatment. Some of these limitations are as small samples, the absence of appropriate control groups, not using randomized clinical trials, and heterogeneity of samples regarding sex, age, cancer type and treatment type and so on.

In addition, many of the researches, which have studied the effect of exercise on patients receiving treatment, have followed a similar pattern in designing the exercise plan. Considering the above-mentioned issues, there is a need for research on designing the newest and yet the most effective techniques of exercise for decreasing fatigue of patients receiving chemotherapy. So, this study was conducted to investigate the effect of designed exercise program on fatigue in women with breast cancer receiving chemotherapy.

Material and Methods

This quasi-experimental research, with two groups of control and experimental has been carried out on women with breast cancer receiving outpatient chemotherapy in cancer institute centre of Tehran Imam Khomeini Hospital in 2006. Sample size (a= 0.05, ß= 0.05) was set according to the statistical formula based on the results obtained from a quasi-experimental research “The samples were estimated 30 patients for the control and experimental groups” (Kim, 2005, ...