Identifying pain-related concerns in routine follow-up clinics following oral and oropharyngeal cancer

Table 3 Quality of life as measured by the University of Washington Quality of Life questionnaire, by whether there was any evidence of significant pain from the University of Washington Quality of Life questionnaire and by whether pain issues were raised for discussion on the Patients Concerns Inventory at the first study clinic n (%)

	No significant pain and no wish to discuss pain (n = 110)	Significant pain(n = 44)	No significant pain but wish to discuss pain (n = 23)	P value2
Significant problems3
Appearance	5 (5)	14 (32)	2 (9)	< 0.001
Swallowing	17 (15)	14 (32)	3 (13)	0.05
Chewing	15 (14)	9 (20)	1 (4)	0.19
Speech	5 (5)	7 (16)	- (-)	0.02
Taste	15 (14)	7 (16)	- (-)	0.14
Saliva	17 (15)	12 (27)	7 (30)	0.04
Physical function subscale, median (IQR)	80 (62-95)	58 (45-72)	68 (54-72)	< 0.001
Significant problems3
Activity	7 (6)	8 (18)	4 (17)	0.06
Recreation	7 (6)	4 (9)	3 (13)	0.53
Shoulder	6 (5)	7 (16)	7 (30)	0.001
Mood	10 (9)	21 (48)	6 (26)	< 0.001
Anxiety	11 (10)	18 (41)	7 (30)	< 0.001
Mood and/or anxiety	15 (14)	23 (52)	11 (48)	< 0.001
Social-emotional subscale1, median (IQR)	85 (73-94)	60 (45-73)	63 (54-79)	< 0.001
Overall QOL
Very poor	- (-)	- (-)	- (-)	< 0.001
Poor	4 (4)	6 (14)	2 (9)
Fair	16 (15)	17 (40)	9 (41)
Good	32 (29)	13 (30)	6 (27)
Very good	44 (40)	6 (14)	5 (23)
Outstanding	14 (13)	1 (2)	- (-)
% less than good	20 (18)	23 (53)	11 (50)	< 0.001

¹The social-emotional subscale score was computed using five domains only, i.e., after excluding pain;

²χ² test, apart from using the Kruskal-Wallis test with actual subscale scores and with the ordinal scale for overall Quality of Life (QOL);

³The criteria used for determining if there was a significant problem can be found in previous work[21]. IQR: Interquartile range.