Abstract: Objective To evaluate and explore overall condition of quality of life and the influential factors among discharged patients with gastric cancer in rural area. Methods Wuwei city of Gansu province was selected as the field. Based on the cross-sectional study, 135 gastric cancer patients in rural areas were interviewed face-to-face to explore their quality of life. The questionnaires used were the EORTC QLQ-C30 3.0 and QLQ-STO22(Chinese version) and multiple linear regression model was used to explore the main factors influencing the quality of life of patients with gastric cancer. Results The overall scores of quality of life of discharged gastric cancer patients were 56.17±20.23. The results of one-way analysis of influential factors of quality of life suggest that gender, marital status, educational background, occupation, family income, degree of tumor differentiation, degree of satisfaction with medical services and medical services were influential factors of the overall quality of life. The results of multiple linear regression suggest that family income, the degrees of the satisfaction with medical fees and educational background had positive correlation with quality of life, the quality of life of male patients was better than that of female patients. Conclusion The overall quality of life of the discharged gastric cancer patients from rural areas which was surveyed needs to be improved. Treating and taking care of rural patients with gastric cancer of different genders, education backgrounds, family income will help to improve their quality of life.

Key words: gastric cancer patients, quality of life, influential factor, rural area