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Evaluating the quality of life of cancer patients: assessments by patients, significant others, physicians and nurses

This study examined the usefulness of caregiver ratings of cancer patients' quality of life (QOL), an issue of relevance to both adequate patient care and to the possible use of proxy QOL raters in clinical studies. We compared QOL ratings of 90 cancer patients receiving inpatient chemotherapy...

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Autores principales: Sneeuw, K C A, Aaronson, N K, Sprangers, M A G, Detmar, S B, Wever, L D V, Schornagel, J H
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group 1999
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2374350/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10487617
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/sj.bjc.6690655
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author Sneeuw, K C A
Aaronson, N K
Sprangers, M A G
Detmar, S B
Wever, L D V
Schornagel, J H
author_facet Sneeuw, K C A
Aaronson, N K
Sprangers, M A G
Detmar, S B
Wever, L D V
Schornagel, J H
author_sort Sneeuw, K C A
collection PubMed
description This study examined the usefulness of caregiver ratings of cancer patients' quality of life (QOL), an issue of relevance to both adequate patient care and to the possible use of proxy QOL raters in clinical studies. We compared QOL ratings of 90 cancer patients receiving inpatient chemotherapy with those provided by their significant others (most often the spouse), physicians and nurses. During patients' scheduled appointment for receiving chemotherapy on a clinical ward, all raters completed independently the Dartmouth COOP Functional Health Assessment charts/WONCA, an instrument developed by a cooperative group of primary care physicians to briefly assess a core set of seven QOL domains (physical fitness, feelings, daily and social activities, overall health, pain and quality of life) by single items with five response options. With few exceptions, mean scores of the proxy raters were equivalent or similar to those of the patients. Most patient–proxy correlations varied between 0.40 and 0.60, indicating a moderate level of agreement at the individual level. Of all comparisons made, 41% were in exact agreement and 43% agreed within one response category, leaving 17% more profound patient–proxy discrepancies. Disagreement was not dependent on the type of proxy rater, or on raters' background characteristics, but was influenced by the QOL dimension under consideration and the clinical status of the patient. Better patient–proxy agreement was observed for more concrete questions (daily activities, pain) and for patients with either a very good (ECOG 0) or poor (ECOG 3) performance status. The results indicate that both significant others and health care providers can be useful sources of information about cancer patients' QOL. © 1999 Cancer Research Campaign
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spelling pubmed-23743502009-09-10 Evaluating the quality of life of cancer patients: assessments by patients, significant others, physicians and nurses Sneeuw, K C A Aaronson, N K Sprangers, M A G Detmar, S B Wever, L D V Schornagel, J H Br J Cancer Regular Article This study examined the usefulness of caregiver ratings of cancer patients' quality of life (QOL), an issue of relevance to both adequate patient care and to the possible use of proxy QOL raters in clinical studies. We compared QOL ratings of 90 cancer patients receiving inpatient chemotherapy with those provided by their significant others (most often the spouse), physicians and nurses. During patients' scheduled appointment for receiving chemotherapy on a clinical ward, all raters completed independently the Dartmouth COOP Functional Health Assessment charts/WONCA, an instrument developed by a cooperative group of primary care physicians to briefly assess a core set of seven QOL domains (physical fitness, feelings, daily and social activities, overall health, pain and quality of life) by single items with five response options. With few exceptions, mean scores of the proxy raters were equivalent or similar to those of the patients. Most patient–proxy correlations varied between 0.40 and 0.60, indicating a moderate level of agreement at the individual level. Of all comparisons made, 41% were in exact agreement and 43% agreed within one response category, leaving 17% more profound patient–proxy discrepancies. Disagreement was not dependent on the type of proxy rater, or on raters' background characteristics, but was influenced by the QOL dimension under consideration and the clinical status of the patient. Better patient–proxy agreement was observed for more concrete questions (daily activities, pain) and for patients with either a very good (ECOG 0) or poor (ECOG 3) performance status. The results indicate that both significant others and health care providers can be useful sources of information about cancer patients' QOL. © 1999 Cancer Research Campaign Nature Publishing Group 1999-09 /pmc/articles/PMC2374350/ /pubmed/10487617 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/sj.bjc.6690655 Text en Copyright © 1999 Cancer Research Campaign https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material.If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Regular Article
Sneeuw, K C A
Aaronson, N K
Sprangers, M A G
Detmar, S B
Wever, L D V
Schornagel, J H
Evaluating the quality of life of cancer patients: assessments by patients, significant others, physicians and nurses
title Evaluating the quality of life of cancer patients: assessments by patients, significant others, physicians and nurses
title_full Evaluating the quality of life of cancer patients: assessments by patients, significant others, physicians and nurses
title_fullStr Evaluating the quality of life of cancer patients: assessments by patients, significant others, physicians and nurses
title_full_unstemmed Evaluating the quality of life of cancer patients: assessments by patients, significant others, physicians and nurses
title_short Evaluating the quality of life of cancer patients: assessments by patients, significant others, physicians and nurses
title_sort evaluating the quality of life of cancer patients: assessments by patients, significant others, physicians and nurses
topic Regular Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2374350/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10487617
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/sj.bjc.6690655
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