Development of the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer quality of life questionnaire module for older people with cancer: The EORTC QLQ-ELD15 (original) (raw)
Related papers
2013
Background: Older people represent the majority of cancer patients but their specific needs are often ignored in the development of health-related quality of life (HRQOL) instruments. The European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) QLQ-ELD15 was developed to supplement the EORTC's core questionnaire, the QLQ-C30, for measuring HRQOL in patients aged 470 years in oncology studies. Methods: Patients (n ΒΌ 518) from 10 countries completed the QLQ-C30, QLQ-ELD15 and a debriefing interview. Eighty two clinically stable patients repeated the questionnaires 1 week later (test-retest analysis) and 107 others, with an expected change in clinical status, repeated the questionnaires 3 months later (response to change analysis, RCA). Results: Information from the debriefing interview, factor analysis and item response theory analysis resulted in the removal of one item (QLQ-ELD15-QLQ-ELD14) and revision of the proposed scale structure to five scales (mobility, worries about others, future worries, maintaining purpose and illness burden) and two single items (joint stiffness and family support). Convergent validity was good. In known-group comparisons, the QLQ-ELD14 differentiated between patients with different disease stage, treatment intention, number of comorbidities, performance status and geriatric screening scores. Test-retest and RCA analyses were equivocal. Conclusion: The QLQ-ELD14 is a validated HRQOL questionnaire for cancer patients aged X70 years. Changes in elderly patients' self-reported HRQOL may be related to both cancer evolution and non-clinical events.
Palliative Medicine, 2006
Palliative care Questionnaires Health status Self-assessment Treatment outcome A B S T R A C T This study aimed at developing a shortened version of the EORTC QLQ-C30, one of the most widely used health-related quality of life questionnaires in oncology, for palliative care research. The study included interviews with 41 patients and 66 health care professionals in palliative care to determine the appropriateness, relevance and importance of the various domains of the QLQ-C30. Item response theory methods were used to shorten scales.
Quality of life in elderly cancer patients
Annals of Oncology, 2001
The incidence of most types of cancer is age-dependent and progressive ageing is rapidly increasing the number of elderly people who need treatment for cancer. Elderly patients (older than 70 years) present particular characteristics that make the choice of the correct treatment more difficult; for this reason, these patients are often undertreated and largely underrepresented in cancer trials making the experimental evidence on this topic even weaker. Only relatively recently has Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) begun to be considered as one of the hard end-points for clinical cancer research in the elderly. Treatment of elderly cancer patients represents a typical situation where its assessment is particularly useful because of the expected toxicity of treatment and several unresolved methodological problems (higher frequency of illiteracy, worse compliance with the questionnaires, concomitant diseases, use of instruments not validated in the aged population). The aim of this review is to underline the importance detected by the too small number of studies on elderly QoL evaluation and the need in future trials either to improve QoL assessment in this subcategory of patients undergoing treatment for cancer or not, or find specific assessment tools to do it.
Health and quality of life outcomes, 2018
The number of cancer survivors is growing steadily and increasingly, clinical trials are being designed to include long-term follow-up to assess not only survival, but also late effects and health-related quality of life (HRQOL). Therefore it is is essential to develop patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) that capture the full range of issues relevant to disease-free cancer survivors. The objectives of this project are: 1) to develop a European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) questionnaire that captures the full range of physical, mental and social HRQOL issues relevant to disease-free cancer survivors; and 2) to determine at which minimal time since completion of treatment the questionnaire should be used. We reviewed 134 publications on cancer survivorship and interviewed 117 disease-free cancer survivors with 11 different types of cancer across 14 countries in Europe to generate an exhaustive, provisional list of HRQOL issues relevant to cancer surv...
Quality-of-life in elderly patients with cancer: A short review
European Journal of Cancer, 2007
Background: Prolongation of survival and maintenance or improvement of health-related quality-of-life (HRQoL) are the two important goals within the treatment of individual patients. Due to the severity of symptoms and the toxicity of treatment, HRQoL has become a major area of concern when treating cancer patients in general and elderly patients in particular. Patients and methods: We present a literature review of HRQoL aspects in elderly patients with cancer and especially address the topic whether impairments in the different tools of a comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA) are associated with decreased HRQoL in elderly cancer patients. Results: Elderly cancer patients tend to weight their HRQoL as more important than gain in survival, when compared to younger patients. An age-dependent decrease in different scales of HRQoL is reported in patients and normative samples. HRQoL is also a predictor of survival. The variation of HRQoL can be used in trials comparing different treatment options. In individual patients, regular measurement of HRQoL aims to improve patientscentred care. Age related impairments of different areas of CGA are associated with decreased HRQoL in elderly cancer patients. Conclusions: HRQoL is an important outcome with elderly cancer patients and should be assessed regularly and thoroughly.
The EORTC quality of life questionnaire (QLQ) is an integrated system for assessing the healthrelated quality of life (QoL) of cancer patients participating in international clinical trials. The core questionnaire, the QLQ-C30, is the product of more than a decade of collaborative research. Following its general release in 1993, the QLQ-C30 has been used in a wide range of cancer clinical trials, by a large number of research groups; it has additionally been used in various other, non-trial studies.
2014
BACKGROUND: Research on health-related quality of life (HRQOL) among older adult cancer survivors is mostly confined to breast cancer, prostate cancer, colorectal cancer, and lung cancer, which account for 63% of all prevalent cancers. Much less is known about HRQOL in the context of less common cancer sites. METHODS: HRQOL was examined with the 36-Item Short Form Health Survey, version 1, and the Veterans RAND 12-Item Health Survey in patients with selected cancers (kidney cancer, bladder cancer, pancreatic cancer, upper gastrointestinal cancer, cancer of the oral cavity and pharynx, uterine cancer, cervical cancer, thyroid cancer, melanoma, chronic leukemia, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and multiple myeloma) and in individuals without cancer on the basis of data linked from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results cancer registry system and the Medicare Health Outcomes Survey. Scale scores, Physical Component Summary (PCS) and Mental Component Summary (MCS) scores, and a utility metric (Short Form 6D/Veterans RAND 6D), adjusted for sociodemographic characteristics and other chronic conditions, were calculated. A 3-point difference in the scale scores and a 2-point difference in the PCS and MCS scores were considered to be minimally important differences. RESULTS: Data from 16,095 cancer survivors and 1,224,549 individuals without a history of cancer were included. The results indicated noteworthy deficits in physical health status. Mental health was comparable, although scores for the Role-Emotional and Social Functioning scales were worse for patients with most types of cancer versus those without cancer. Survivors of multiple myeloma and pancreatic malignancies reported the lowest scores, with their PCS/MCS scores less than those of individuals without cancer by 3 or more points. CONCLUSIONS: HRQOL surveillance efforts revealed poor health outcomes among many older adults and specifically among survivors of multiple myeloma and pancreatic cancer. Cancer 2014;