Iranian diabetic adolescent girls' quality of life: perspectives on barriers.

INTRODUCTION: Diabetes with permanent changes in a person's life-style has negative effects on adolescent quality of life (QoL) too. Diabetes may afflict men and women equally, but the suffering associated with the disease when it appears in an adolescent girl will have disastrous effects on her life. If we want to improve the QoL for girls with the disease, then being familiar with the barrier factors for a good QoL is important. AIM: To explore Iranian diabetic adolescent girls' perspective on barriers of having a good QoL. METHODS: A qualitative design using content analysis was applied in order to seek the purpose. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 20 adolescent girls with Type 1 diabetes. The participants were recruited by purposeful sampling of 'West Azerbaijan Diabetes Association' members as well as some patients in Uremia city hospitals. FINDINGS: Qualitative content analysis demonstrated two original category from effective barriers on good QoL: (1) external world barriers on good QoL (problems in family, social perspective about diabetes and problems in school), (2) Individual barriers on good QoL (negative feeling toward treatment and care, negative effects of Diabetes and uncertainty about future). Also it was shown that, cultural believes, such more controls and limitations the various aspects of the behaviour and life of girls compared with boys sometimes had negative effects on QoL. CONCLUSION: As most paediatric teams are multidisciplinary, sharing the information regarding QoL barriers as part of ongoing clinical care is crucial and should help to tailor care to the needs of the adolescent with diabetes.

The effect of designed exercise programme on quality of life in women with breast cancer receiving chemotherapy.

AIM AND OBJECTIVE: The researchers sought to investigate the effect of a designed exercise programme on the quality of life (QOL) in women with breast cancer receiving chemotherapy. BACKGROUND: Regarding the destructive effects of breast cancer and chemotherapy on women's lifestyle and well-being, health-care providers have the responsibility of searching for effective and safe programmes in order to bring an improvement to the patients' QOL. METHODS: In a quasi-experimental design, 56 women with breast cancer receiving chemotherapy in an Iranian cancer institution were chosen; and then divided into two control and experiment groups consisting of 28 participants each. The patients in the experiment group followed a designed exercise programme characterized with daily physical exercises, 3-5 days per week, which lasted for 9 weeks. The Quality of Life-Breast Cancer (QOL-BC) questionnaire was employed to measure the participants' QOL in physical, emotional and social dimensions before and after the intervention. Descriptive and inferential statistics were utilized for data analysis. RESULTS: No significant differences were found in the QOL dimensions between two groups before the manipulation; but significant differences in physical (p = 0.004), emotional (p = 0.01), social (p = 0.02) and spiritual (p = 0.45) dimensions as well as the total QOL (p = 0.003) after the intervention, were indicative of the effectiveness of the programme. CONCLUSION: Based on the study findings, it is recommended that this programme can be employed as an effective means of improving the QOL among patients with breast cancer.