The use of EORTC measures in daily clinical practice—A synopsis of a newly developed manual

Abstract

Cancer has increasingly become a chronic condition and the routine collection of patient-reported outcomes (PROs) like quality of life is widely recommended for clinical practice. Nonetheless, the successful implementation of PROs is still a major challenge, although common barriers to and facilitators of their beneficial use are well known. To support health care professionals and other stakeholders in the implementation of the EORTC PRO measures, the EORTC Quality of Life Group provides guidance on issues considered important for their use in daily clinical practice. Herein, we present an outline of the newly developed "'Manual for the use of EORTC measures in daily clinical practice", covering the following issues: * a rationale for using EORTC measures in routine care *selection of EORTC measures, timing of assessments, scoring and presentation of results * aspects of a strategic implementation * electronic data assessment and telemonitoring, and * further use of EORTC measures and ethical considerations. Next to an extensive overview of currently available literature, the manual specifically focuses on knowledge about EORTC measures to give evidence-based recommendations whenever possible and to encourage readers and end-users of EORTC measures to contribute to further needed high-quality research. The manual will be accessible on the EORTC Quality of Life Group website's homepage and will be periodically updated to take into account any new knowledge due to medical, technical, regulatory and scientific advances.

A cross‐cultural convergent parallel mixed methods study of what makes a cancer‐related symptom or functional health problem clinically important

“…In oncology, patient‐reported outcomes (PROs) have gained importance in patient‐centred health care and research, and PRO study end points complement traditional outcomes such as survival or disease progression . In routine clinical practice, PROs help to narrow the gap between patients' and health care professionals' (HCPs) view of health status and treatment success and help to improve care by meeting the patient's preferences and needs . Even in the context of advanced cancer settings, routine collection of PRO data has been shown to be feasible and associated with a number of clinical benefits including fewer hospitalizations and superior quality adjusted survival …”

“…1 In routine clinical practice, PROs help to narrow the gap between patients' and health care professionals' (HCPs) view of health status and treatment success and help to improve care by meeting the patient's preferences and needs. [2][3][4] Even in the context of advanced cancer settings, routine collection of PRO data has been shown to be feasible and associated with a number of clinical benefits including fewer hospitalizations and superior quality adjusted survival. 5 However, the interpretation of scores derived from PRO questionnaires is often challenging for patients and HCPs, partly because results are given on metrics (eg, from 0 to 100 (6)) that often are difficult to interpret.…”

Assessing Patient-reported Quality of Life Outcomes in Vulva Cancer Patients: A Systematic Literature Review

“…Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) complements clinical data with the patient's perspective, and there is an increasing demand for systematic implementation of PROMs in daily clinical practice and clinical trials. 15 It has therefore become important to develop PROMs that allow for broad cross-cultural application.…”

Measuring health-related quality of life in patients with advanced cancer: a systematic review of self-administered measurement instruments

“…The routine use of the EORTC QLQ-C30 in clinical practice appears to improve physician-patient communication and HRQoL [102], but the implementation has its challenges (e.g. timing, frequency, interpretations of scores by health care professionals, and the absence of thresholds for clinical importance) [103]. Surprisingly, the present review showed that the psychometric quality of this measurement instrument has been examined many times but not adequately in patients with advanced cancer.…”