RATIONALE: Gathering information about quality of life in patients with cancer may improve the ability to plan treatment and may help patients live more comfortably.

PURPOSE: This clinical trial is studying health-related quality of life in patients with bladder cancer.

OBJECTIVES:

• To identify aspects of survivorship experience that differ by clinical risk (low risk vs high risk) in patients with non-invasive bladder cancer.
• To collect and examine data on health-related quality of life (HRQOL) and symptom management.
• To analyze differences in outcomes between genders, stage and grade of disease, and recency of diagnosis (new diagnosis vs ≥ 6 month diagnosis).

OUTLINE: Patients undergo a 45-minute telephone interview to assess their current medical condition and psychological functioning (i.e., bladder cancer treatment history, levels of depression and anxiety, quality of life, self-efficacy, and perceived social support). Patients complete a series of questionnaires including the Lepore social constraint measure; REACH social support measure; self-report inventories assessing patient communication, relationship style, illness intrusiveness, fear of recurrence, and social constraint; Impact of Events scale; Brief Symptom Index-18 and Global Severity Index; EORTC QLQ-C30 (general health-related quality of life); and EORTC QLC-BLS24 (disease-specific health-related quality of life).

DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS:

• Diagnosis of non-invasive bladder cancer within the past 4 years

PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS:

• Not pregnant
• Able to read, speak, and understand English

PRIOR CONCURRENT THERAPY:

• Not specified

Persons diagnosed with bladder cancer within 4 years of study entry