**3. Supportive and palliative care and QoL among cancer patients**

A patient's quality of life (QoL) is the primary emphasis of palliative care treatment. The importance of measuring QoL in palliative care is starting to be recognized. QoL is an open-ended concept, with a wide range of interpreted meanings and associated nuances [4].

The physical pain, emotional stress, and financial hardship caused by cancer and its treatment significantly lower the QoL of sufferers (i.e., cancer patients). As a result, in 1990, the WHO launched the palliative care (PC) project, which stands for medical care aimed at enhancing the QoL of people living with life-threatening illnesses by alleviating their symptoms. Assessment, early identification, and treatment of pain, assistance with physical or psychological problems, and spiritual support are all ways in which PC enhances QoL. Patients with cancer often keep taking medications that are no longer helping them because they fear the alternative. Patients with cancer can get the help they need and reduce their symptoms with the right PC approach [5, 6].

Amal and colleagues conducted a prospective study among 240 cancer survivors at King Hussein Cancer Center in Amman, Jordan. The aim was to determine shortage in supportive palliative care and QoL among adult cancer survivors' QoL. Unfortunately, results showed the presence of shortage in several needs of this population, which significantly led to drop down in their QoL [7].

Another prospective study by Antoine and colleagues was conducted in monocancer care center in France. The aim was to determine the relationship between meeting their needs (i.e., supportive and palliative care) with both their QoL and decreased unscheduled hospital care. Authors detected that there is a direct relationship between cancer patients QoL and meeting their needs only [8].
