A patient with a necrotic and foul-smelling malignant wound may experience a poor quality of life (QOL). A QOL instrument can help monitor the effectiveness of any intervention to correct the problem.
Problems for a patient with a foul-smelling malignant wound:
(1) isolation with avoidance by health care providers
(2) isolation with avoidance by family and friends
(3) isolation from other patients
(4) feelings of embarrassment or shame
(5) feelings of loneliness
(6) anger or depression
One possible solution is to develop a series of Likert-type scales or visual analogue scales (VAS), one for each problem. The patient can be tested before, during and after interventions to determine if these have been effective in improving the quality of life.
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