AIM: The postoperative patients with breast cancer have obvious psychological and physiological obstacles, body image, relationship, sexual function and coping strategies were related to almost all quality of life (QOL) domains. To observe effects of health education on QOL in postoprative patients with breast cancer in half a year after operation. METHODS: Ninety postoperative patients with breast cancer aged between 29 and 65 years at diagnosis with a mean of 43 years, who were hospitalized in the Department of Internal Medicine, Tumor Hospital Affiliated to Harbin Medical University from January 2003 to January 2005, were enrolled in this study. All the patients were in accordance with the inclusive criteria of patients with breast cancer treated by operation and diagnosed by clinical syndrome, imaging examination and pathology, while exclusive criteria: those with cognitive handicap and mental disorder or family medical history. The patients were randomly divided into intervention group (n = 45) and control group (n = 45) to compare the QOL in them in half a year after operation. The patients in both two groups received health education. The patients in intervention group received mental intervention and rehabilitation instruction, formulating exercise plan, they must do completely through supervised by doctors and nurses, how the other group did depended on the willings of patients and families (for example, the families did not agree with the exercise plan or the patients could not do well by themselves). Health education included: (1) publicizing disease information: right cognition and attitude to disease of breast cancer, (2) mental intervention: during the process of the beginning of disease diagnosis, therapy process in hospital, during radiotherapy and chemiotherapy, after rehabilitation discharge and the families members of patients with breast cancer, (3) rehabilitation knowledge education included limbs functional recovery, food and drink guidance and sex life. Evaluation index: (1) compared mental and emotional state, rehabilitation states after operation (general body state and complication), the grade of side effects caused by chemotherapy(severity); (2) the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Breast Cancer (FACT-B) was used to assess health-related QOL and follow-up. The FACT-B consisted of the following subscales: physical well-being, social/family well-being, relationship with doctors, emotional well-being, functional well-being, and other factors (breast cancer-specific concerns). The checklist had well documented reliability, validity, internal consistency and was acceptable to patients. Score of each item in each part was added to obtain the total score. The higher the scores, the better their quality of life was. RESULTS: Totally 90 included patients were involved in the result analysis. (1) Mental and emotional status, rehabilitation states and the side effects caused by chemotherapy were better in the intervention group than in the control group (39 versus 26, 43 versus 36, 14 versus 24, respectively, p < 0.05). (2) The number of patients with at least 41 points of quality of life and functional recovery were higher in the intervention group than in the control group, and the difference was significant (24 versus 15, 25 versus 13, respectively, p < 0.05). CONCLUSION: Patients with breast cancer are affected after diagnosis and treatment in QOL. Complete rehabilitative education can improve the postoperative QOL and satisfactory degree of injured limbs in the patients with breast cancer. It is worth of close attention of clinical doctors to line it as one of the post-operative therapeutic methods.

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