Comparison of quality of life between urban and rural gastric cancer patients and analysis of influencing factors

Table 1 List of factors that may affect the quality of life of gastric cancer patients

Factor	Definition
Gender	Male 1 Female 2
Age (yr)
Marital status	Single 1 Married 2 Divorced 3 Widowed 4
Education	Primary school 1 Middle school 2 High school 3 University 4
Family income (per capita, Yuan)
Medical insurance	Yes 1 No 0
Clinical stage of tumor	1-4
Survival time (mo)
Surgery	2/3 gastrectomy 1, 4/5 gastrectomy 2, total gastrectomy 3
Number of chemotherapy programs
Time from the latest chemotherapy to the enrollment (mo)
Treatment of traditional Chinese medicine	Yes 1 No 0
Home nursing staff	Spouse 1 Other relatives 2 Housekeepers 3 None 4
Chemotherapy	Yes 1 No 0
Enhanced nutrition	Yes 1 No 0
Rehabilitating exercise	Yes 1 No 0

Table 2 The 21 parameters of the quality of life

Items
1	Sleep
2	Range of activities
3	Eating
4	Ability of using traffic vehicles independently
5	Ability of body movement
6	Ability to live independently
7	Housework
8	Pain
9	Recreational activities
10	Watching TV or listening to radio
11	Interest or hobby
12	Knowledge of cancer
13	Mental status
14	Fear of disease
15	Psychological pain
16	Connection with relatives and friends
17	Social contact
18	Disappointment
19	Confidence of fighting the disease
20	Intellectual activities
21	Attitude towards treatment

Table 3 Distributions of total scores in urban patients and rural patients

Total score	Urban		Rural
	n	Percentage (%)	n	Percentage (%)
< 30	3	1.85	4	2.00
30-	3	1.85	6	3.00
40-	8	4.94	16	8.00
50-	17	10.49	54	27.00
60-	43	26.54	69	34.50
70-	59	36.42	41	20.50
80-	27	16.67	10	5.00
90-105	2	1.23	0	0.00

Table 4 Means and standard deviations of total scores in the two samples

	Number of the patients	mean	SD	95% confidence interval
Urban	162	68.69	12.98	66.69-70.69
Rural	200	64.11	11.29	62.54-65.67
		t = 3.5885	P = 0.0004

Table 5 Results of stepwise regression with urban patients

Variable	Regression coefficient	SEM	t	P
Age (yr)	-0.10620	0.02654	-4.00	0.0001
Family income	1.11909	0.36949	3.03	0.0032
Clinical stage of the tumor	-1.10772	0.52498	-2.11	0.0375
Time from the latest chemotherapy to the enrollment	0.09199	0.03876	2.37	0.0095
Home nursing staff	-2.98233	0.57659	-5.17	< 0.0001
Enhanced nutrition	1.80669	0.88221	2.05	0.0431
Rehabilitating exercise	1.01185	0.39245	2.58	0.0115

Table 6 Results of stepwise regression with rural patients

Variable	Parameter estimated	SEM	t	P
Family income	1.0860	0.45974	2.36	0.0193
Surgery	-14.24462	2.77803	5.12	< 0.0001
Enhanced nutrition	-2.73243	1.37834	1.98	0.0488
Rehabilitating exercise	-2.20909	0.87618	2.52	0.0125