Quality of life measures in psoriasis: a critical appraisal of their quality

In recent years, the importance of patient-generated evaluations in assessi ng the impact of healthcare has been recognized. A plethora of quality of l ife (QoL) instruments have been developed to measure the burden of psoriasi s and its treatment on the patient. We review the QoL measures and provide a critical appraisal of their quality. There is considerable variation in h ow the instruments have been constructed, the categories and items included , and the methods by which their reliability and validity have been examine d. In order to guide investigators in their choice of instrument, further h ead-to-head comparisons of measures should be undertaken. When QoL measures are compared, a Pearson or rank-order correlation coefficient is not suffi cient to indicate agreement. Methods that examine agreement, rather than as sociation, are available and should be used. In the future, we will need to demonstrate whether these measurement tools are ready for widespread imple mentation in clinical trials or routine patient follow-up.