Quality of Life in Egyptian Children with Cancer
1260
value of 83.3 compared to 68.2 in larger sized families (p
< 0.05). This could be explained by difficult interper-
sonal relationships and less parental care offered to their
children with the increased number. The poorer QOL
among female versus male patients (p < 0.05) in more
than one domain was also matched with similar studies
[30,31]. Such domains included treatment anxiety, worry
and perceived physical appearance. For residence, on the
other hand, on showing no significant differences in
QOL and its subscales between the urban and rural resi-
dences, our results agreed with literature reporting the
weak influence of such a parameter on QOL [32].
In summary: increased treatment intensity, long dura-
tion of hospital admission, high frequency of hospital
visits, female sex and younger age were all associated
with a poorer total QOL and/or its subscales among
Egyptian pediatric cancer patients.
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