Rehabilitation Needs of the Malaysian Haematological Cancer Survivors

Many cancers are being treated more effectively nowadays due to the raised awareness and early detection as well as advancement in researches and technology. Despite the rising number of cancer survivors in the coming years, these survivors are still plagued by the poor quality of life due to physical and psychological impairment. According to the National Cancer Registry Report from 2007-2011, haematological cancer is one of the ten most common cancers in Malaysian population. Many haematological cancer survivors in Malaysia are reportedly having poor quality of life due to multiple physical and emotional impairments which leads to further disability in life. It is thus an important effort to identify the rehabilitation needs in these cancer survivors to implement alternatives to improve the disease outcome through cancer rehabilitation.

A cross-sectional questionnaire-based study will be employed to identify the rehabilitation needs and predictors of needs in outpatient hemato-oncological cohort at UMMC Hemato-oncology Clinic for 12 months. The validated questionnaire employed evaluates the potential disabilities that could affect the aforementioned patients in domains such as communication, independence in mobility, self-care, social participation, handling relationships and domestic activity of daily living a month prior to the survey. Participants of age between 18 to 80 years old, diagnosed with haemato-oncological illnesses will be screened; excluding potential participants who are too ill or cannot understand English, Malay, or Chinese; to be recruited in the research. Based on the findings from the analysis, rehabilitation needs could be tailored accordingly to improve quality of life of these patients