Measuring quality of life in cancer survivors: a methodological review of existing scales

Abstract

There is a need for a psychometrically credible QoL instrument for cancer survivors who are 1-5 years post diagnosis.

Palliative partial pancreaticoduodenectomy impairs quality of life compared to bypass surgery in patients with advanced adenocarcinoma of the pancreatic head

“…Inter-individual differences were calculated to identify individual changes and dynamics that might be obscured by simple comparison of total values. Furthermore, the range of inter-individual health related QoL scores is well known to be extensive, leading to difficulties in identification of averaged differences 13 .…”

Evaluation of the Quality of Life in Adult Cancer Survivors (QLACS) scale for early post-treatment breast cancer survivors

“…The QLACS appears to capture QoL as similarly as other widely accepted QoL measures, while also allowing for an expanded measurement of issues relevant to posttreatment cancer survivors, such as financial issues and concerns about recurrence. Thus, the QLACS is a promising answer to the call for QoL measures for cancer survivors transitioning off active treatment [5].…”

“…In addition, five of the QLACS domains are cancer specific and refer to cancer-related concerns. A review of QoL instruments for long-term breast cancer survivors noted that the QLACS had good psychometric properties such as high internal consistency, high validity, and good responsiveness compared to other QoL instruments used in this population [5]. The psychometric properties of the QLACS scale were further evaluated in long-term (8-year) breast cancer survivors [15] and demonstrated good test-retest reliability, high internal consistency, high responsiveness to life changes, and good validity.…”

“…A recent review of QoL scales for cancer survivors [5] identified a particular need for psychometrically sound QoL instruments appropriate for cancer survivors who are postprimary treatment and 1-5 years post-diagnosis, in order to capture the mix of symptoms that arise during treatment and new issues that develop during the transition off primary treatment. Although originally developed for long-term cancer survivors, the QLACS targets issues pertinent as well to those new to post-treatment and thus may also be appropriate for early-transition cancer survivors.…”

Patient-reported Outcome Measures in Radiotherapy: Clinical Advances and Research Opportunities in Measurement for Survivorship

“…More critically the small incidence of severe late effects and lack of specificity to radiotherapy effects mean that PROM tools rarely have precision in detecting significant differences between radiotherapy treatments. The evolving basis of treatment and emerging late effects for cancer survivors requires researchers to look ahead so that emerging treatment effects can be captured in relation the HRQOL (30). This means there is a need for PRO measures across the spectrum (Figure 1) to be able to predict future requirements and analyse treatment effects.…”