Head and neck cancer (HNC) patients experience treatment-related complications that may interfere with health-related quality of life (HRQOL). The purpose of this study was to describe the symptom experience (shoulder pain) and functional status factors that are related to global and domain-specific HRQOL at one month after HNC surgery. In this exploratory study, we examined 29 patients. The outcome variables included global HRQOL as well as physical, functional, emotional, and social well-being. Symptom experience and functional status factors were the independent variables. In the symptom experience variables, shoulder pain distress was negatively associated with physical well-being ( ). Among the functional status variables, eating impairment was negatively related to global HRQOL ( ) and physical well-being ( ). Speaking impairment and impaired body image explained a large amount of the variance in functional well-being ( ). This study provided initial results regarding symptom experience and functional status factors related to poor HRQOL in the early postoperative period for HNC patients. 1. Introduction Up to 80% of head and neck cancer (HNC) patients who had neck lymph node dissection experienced shoulder pain that led to impaired shoulder function [1–3]. Cancers of the head and neck include malignant tumors of the buccal cavity, larynx, pharynx, thyroid, salivary glands, and nose/nasal passages [4]. Because of the specific anatomic structures involved, HNC treatment negatively impacts one or more body functions such as breathing [5, 6], eating [7, 8], speaking [8, 9], and body image [9, 10]. There are 113,860 new cases of head and neck cancer (HNC) expected in 2013 [11]. Shoulder pain, impaired shoulder function, impaired body image, and difficulty with breathing, eating, or speaking contribute to decrements in health-related quality of life (HRQOL) [12, 13]. In addition to survival and recurrence, HRQOL has been considered one of the most important outcomes in HNC studies [14]. Although there is no standard instrument to measure HRQOL, the majority of researchers agree that HRQOL is a subjective and multidimensional construct consisting of four main domains in a person’s health-related life: physical well-being, functional well-being, emotional well-being, and social well-being [15–17]. Longitudinal studies have shown that HRQOL in patients with HNC declined immediately after cancer treatment when compared with pretreatment baseline data [12, 18–20]. Early rehabilitation has been suggested as an important strategy to help HNC patients cope
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