About half of all cancer patients are treated with radiation therapy because the radiation destroys the cancer cells' ability to reproduce and the body naturally gets rid of these cells. Quality of life has become an important gauge for evaluating healthcare outcomes. Provider's care for radiation therapy patients and their treatment has been front runners in the evaluation of quality of life, recognizing the need to assess outcomes more broadly than tumor response and length of survival. Therefore, the aim of this study was to assessing the effect of a health educational program on quality of life of cancer patients receiving radiotherapy. The study hypothesized that by completion of the program, quality of life total score among the study group who participated in the program will be higher than control group. Quasi experimental design was utilized in this study. The study was conducted in the clinical oncology unit and outpatient clinic of radiotherapy of Zagazig University Hospital 60 adult patients equally (30 study – 30 controls). The tools of data collection were 1) A patients' assessment sheet was constructed by the researcher, 2) Interviewing questionnaire sheet, 3) quality of life scale that developed to assess the impact of cancer on the quality of life of cancer patients, 4) Proposed management program. The results showed high in total quality of life score of the study group as compared to control group immediately post and after one month from giving the educational program, improvement in knowledge about cancer and radiotherapy of study group immediate post and after one month as compared to control group. The study concluded that all patients under radiotherapy need to improve knowledge about radiotherapy before starting the course of treatment for overcoming side effects. The study recommended that there is a need to plan and conduct an in- service training program to the radiotherapy nursing staff about their role in controlling side effects of radiotherapy.
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