Background: Cancer represents a stressful life with negative consequences requiring social support for patients. This study describes the correlation between perceived social support and network with quality of life in cancer patients.

Material and Methods: A descriptive-co relational design with continuos sampling method was performed and 220 patients in Firoozgar & Hazrat Rasool hospital and Emam Khomeini cancer Institute. Data obtained through social support questionnaires (SSQ) and the Ferrans and Powers quality of life index- cancer version (QLI-CV) and analyzed using SPSS version 13, Pearson correlation, Onaway Anova and Kruskal- Wallis tests.

Results: The mean scores for perceived social support and quality of life were (136.44 and 18.22 respectively) which most of them received moderate to high social support from their meddle-size social network (4.17). Also, statistically, significant relations were found between age and marital status and perceived social support with the quality of life and diagnosis duration, type of treatment and economical condition (P<0.001) while there was not any relation between the quality of life and type of cancer. A significant positive correlation was found between perceived social support and quality of life (r=0.446, p<0.001) especially the family dimensions and size of social network(r=0.200, p<0.001), also quality of life and the size of social network(r=0.246, p<0.05).

Conclusions : The results of this study give insights into the importance of perceived social support for promotion of the quality of life in cancer patients. Oncology nurse are recommended to apply findings to enhance the social networks of cancer patients and give them appropriate support. So that, further researches are recommended in this issue.