Quality of life assessment and outcome of palliative care

Quality of life (Qol) assessment is crucial for the evaluation of palliativ e care outcome. IN this paper, our methodological approach was based on the creation of summary measures. Fifty-eight Palliative are Units (PCUs) in I taly participated in the study. Each PCU randomly selected patients to be ' evaluated' among the consecutively 'registered' patients. At baseline (firs t visit) and each week the patient was asked to fil lin a QoL questionnaire , the Therapy Impact Questionnaire (TIQ). Short-survivors (<7 days) were no t included in the QoL study. The random sample of patients (n = 601) was hi ghly representative of the general patient population card for by the PCUs in Italy. The mediation survival was 37.9 days. We collected 3546 TIQ, 71.4 % completed by the patients. A Summary Measure Outcome score was calculated for 409 patients (81% of the patients included in QoL study). The results of this national study showed that cooperative clinical research in palliat ive care is possible and QoL measures can be used to assess the outcome. J Pain Symptom Manage 2001;21: 179-188. (C) U.S. Cancer Pain Relief Committee , 2001.