Impact of orofacial pain on the quality of life of mouth and oropharynge cancer patients

ABSTRACT

Purpose

To investigate the impact of orofacial pain on the quality of life of patients with oral and oropharyngeal cancer.

Methods

This is a cross-sectional, observational, descriptive study with a convenience sample. Thirty patients of both sexes participated in the research, aged between 35 and 75 years. For data collection, a sociodemographic questionnaire prepared by the researchers, the McGuill pain protocol, was used.

Results

The experimental findings show us relevant results at different classification levels for orofacial pain. The greatest repercussions were found in social aspects, such as sleep (40%), appetite/food (78%), personal hygiene (55%) and leisure (40%), which were the sub-items that had the greatest impact on pain (or which were the sub-items mostly affected by pain), affecting the the quality of life of patients with oral and oropharyngeal cancer.

Conclusion

Under these experimental conditions, it is concluded that patients with oral and oropharyngeal cancer present different levels of orofacial pain, and suffer impacts on their lives, especially in matters related to simple daily activities.

Keywords:
Facial pain; Mouth neoplasms; Causalgia; Head and neck neoplasms; Speech Language and Hearing Sciences