EORTC QLQ-C30 and FACT-BMT for the measurement of quality of life in bone marrow transplant recipients: a comparison

The purpose of the study was to compare two different quality-of-life self- rating instruments, namely the EORTC QLQ-C30, developed by the quality-of-l ife study group of the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer, and the FACT-BMT (version 3), the Functional Assessment of Cancer T herapy - Bone Marrow Transplantation scale, which is the FACT-G(eneral meas ure) in combination with a module developed specifically for evaluating qua lity of life of bone marrow transplant (BMT) patients. Fifty-six BMT recipi ents completed both the EORTC QLQ-C30 and the FACT-BMT (German language ver sion) during the same session. Questionnaire data were analyzed on a subsca le basis using correlation analysis and multiple linear regression. Correla tions between corresponding subscales of EORTC QLQ-C30 and the FACT-BMT ran ged from r = 0.30 for the emotional domain (poor agreement) to r = 0.77 for global QOL (good agreement). This suggests that the instruments, despite c onsiderable overlap, possibly focus on different aspects of QOL, in particu lar in addressing emotional and social issues of BMT patients. It appears t hat the FACT-BMT gives a more comprehensive overview regarding the multidim ensional construct of quality of life. The EORTC QLQ-C30 gives more insight into the physical aspects of quality of life and helps to identify symptom s which effectively decrease quality of life from the patient's perspective . The QLQ-C30 might be improved by the incorporation of a BMT-specific modu le currently under development. We therefore conclude that neither of the t wo instruments can be replaced by the other in the assessment of QOL of BMT patients and that a direct comparison of results obtained with the two ins truments is likely to be misleading.