MRC QUALITY-OF-LIFE STUDIES USING A DAILY DIARY CARD - PRACTICAL LESSONS LEARNED FROM CANCER TRIALS

The UK Medical Research Council (MRC) Daily Diary Card for quality of life (QOL) assessment was first designed over ten years ago, and since then has been in continuous use in cancer clinical trials organized b y the MRC Cancer Trials Office. However, clinical trials using this te chnique have only reached maturity since 1989 and later. Thus it is ti mely to review the experiences gained by use of this method of assessi ng QOL. Results from a series of clinical trials confirm that the Dail y Diary Card appears to be a valid, reliable and sensitive instrument which is able to detect the transient changes in health and QOL which occur on a day to day basis during therapy for cancer. However, in ear ly studies we also encountered a number of problems which were address ed during later MRC trials; we believe that many of these are of gener al importance to any investigation of QOL in patients, many of the iss ues raised remain controversial, and the practical lessons learned fro m applying the Diary Card will be of relevance to those planning futur e studies of QOL assessment.