Abstract
BackgroundThe assessment of patients’ quality of life (QOL) is essential when evaluating the outcome of palliative care; however, no instruments have been validated for measuring symptoms and QOL in patients receiving palliative care in Chile. We aimed to investigate the content validity of the EORTC Quality of Life Questionnaire Core 15 Palliative Care (QLQ-C15-PAL), replicating the methods used previously to shorten the EORTC Quality of Life Questionnaire Core 30 (QLQ-C30) for use among patients in palliative care.MethodsThis cross-sectional study was conducted from October to November 2017 in four palliative care services. Patients with advanced cancer and health care professionals (HCPs) were invited to individual interviews to determine the relevance, appropriateness and relative importance of the 30 items of the QLQ-C30 for evaluating the outcome of palliative care, and whether relevant additional issues should be included.ResultsA total of 48 patients and 35 HCPs participated. The most important dimensions selected were pain, physical functioning, sleeping difficulties, emotional functioning, nausea/vomiting, fatigue, social functioning, lack of appetite, role functioning and constipation. Qualitative data identified important additional issues not covered by the questionnaire such as satisfaction with care, emotions and psychological support, as well as linguistic issues in the dyspnea and constipation items.ConclusionsThe EORTC QLQ-C15-PAL showed good content validity in the assessment of symptoms and QOL of advanced cancer patients; therefore, we recommend the use of this questionnaire in palliative care in Chile. Dyspnea and constipation items were revised by the EORTC group. More research is needed to add a social dimension for a comprehensive assessment of patients’ QOL.
Highlights
The assessment of patients’ quality of life (QOL) is essential when evaluating the outcome of palliative care; no instruments have been validated for measuring symptoms and QOL in patients receiving palliative care in Chile
Participation A total of 48 patients with advanced cancer and 35 health care professionals (HCPs) participated in the interviews
Interviews Relevance, appropriateness and relative importance of the EORTC Quality of Life Questionnaire Core 30 (QLQ-C30) The quantitative data including ratings of relevance, inappropriateness, and relative importance of items are summarized in Table 2, together with the qualitative data from categorized responses to the question: “Why do you consider this question not or only little relevant?” presented in Table 3, will be discussed simultaneously for each dimension of the QLQ-C30 questionnaire
Summary
The assessment of patients’ quality of life (QOL) is essential when evaluating the outcome of palliative care; no instruments have been validated for measuring symptoms and QOL in patients receiving palliative care in Chile. The European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) Quality of Life Questionnaire Core 15 Palliative Care (QLQ-C15-PAL) is an abbreviated 15-item version of the EORTC Quality of Life Questionnaire Core 30 (QLQ-C30), which is one of the most widely used, validated, translated and published instruments for assessing symptoms and QOL in cancer patients [2]. The QLQ-C15-PAL contains the items of the QLQ-C30 which were identified as the most important for palliative care, based on interviews with health care professionals and patients [3], and on statistical analyses using item response theory [4, 5]. The QLQ-C15-PAL has been successfully validated and translated in several countries [6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14], including Spanish-speaking countries [15, 16]
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