Abstract:
The aim of study was to examine the quality of life, mood changes and the coping strategies in
patients with oral cancer and HIV/AIDS. It was hypothesized that the quality of life will be low in both mouth cancer and HIV/AIDS patients as compared to the general population, secondly anxiety and depression will be higher in cancer participants as compared to HIV participants, and thirdly that the coping strategies used by cancer patients will be emotion focused whereas that of HIV patients will be problem focused. A sample of 50 patients were recruited from which 25 were oral cancer patients and the other 25 were HIV patients. All of the participants completed 3 self-report questionnaires: Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS), Agha Khan University Anxiety Depression Scale (AKUADS), and Brief COPE. The result was analyzed using SPSS. The results indicate that the life satisfaction was significantly higher among mouth cancer patients as compared to HIV/AIDS patients (p<0.05, t = 2.958). Also, that anxiety and depressive symptoms are high among patients of HIV/AIDS as compared to mouth cancer patients (p<0.05, t = 3.850), and thirdly that a significant difference on problem focused coping in both HIV/AIDS and mouth cancer which depicts that problem focused coping is high among both mouth cancer and HIV/AIDS patients as compared to emotion focused coping (p<0.05, t = 4.859 and p<0.05, l = 4.084). Thus the implication of this study suggests that patients of HIV/AIDS need more psychological care to live a healthy and quality.
