ASSESSMENT OF PATIENT PREFERENCES AMONG MEN WITH PROSTATE-CANCER

Purpose: We developed a self-administered paper based instrument to as sess patient preferences quantified as utilities for common outcomes a ssociated with the management of prostate cancer. Materials and Method s: A total of 50 patients was invited to test a self-administered pape r based instrument designed to assess preferences for health outcomes associated with the management of localized prostate cancer. The 50 pa tients were selected from a group of 625 randomly identified men with prostate cancer who responded to a survey instrument designed to asses s health related quality of life. The 50 patients selected for this pi lot project were chosen because of the wide range of responses to the quality of life survey. Patient utilities were assessed for the 5 heal th states of overall quality of life, problems related to prostate can cer, and problems related to urinary, bowel and sexual dysfunction. Re sults: Patients were able to complete the assigned tasks. The self-adm inistered instrument had high test-retest reliability. In addition res ults obtained from this instrument showed a correlation with results o btained from assessments using other instruments, including an analog scale, a computer based system known as U-Titer, a quality of life sur vey and the Health Utility Index:3. Conclusions: A self-administered p aper based instrument can be used to assess patient utilities for heal th states associated with prostate cancer management. Results from the instrument tested appear to be reliable and valid, and are comparable to those obtained from other assessment techniques. A self-administer ed paper based instrument has distinct advantages when conducting larg e survey studies because it can be incorporated at relatively low cost .