Does the agreement of patient and physician assessments of health related quality of life in palliative care depend on patient characteristics?

Abstract

Objective: Using physician assessments of patients' health related quality of life may improve the feasibility of studies in palliative care. However, poor agreement between patients and physicians has been found. We investigated whether subgroups of patients with good agreement existed. Study design and setting: Patient and physician assessments of twelve European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Care Questionnaire 30 domains were obtained once a week for up to 13 weeks. The association between agreement and patient characteristics at the first assessment (n = 115) was investigated using multivariate logistic regression. Significant associations were verified using the follow-up time-points combined (total n = 263). Results : Significant associations between patient characteristics and agreement were found for most domains. However, few subgroups had good agreement. The evaluations on follow-up data did not confirm the findings of subgroups with good agreement. Conclusion: Based on our findings physician assessments cannot be recommended as a substitute for patient self-assessment for any subgroups of palliative care patients. Palliative Medicine 2007; 21: 289—294