Patients with chronic pancreatitis experience substantial impairments in health-related quality of life. The severity of chronic pancreatitis-related symptoms is directly associated with patient function and well-being. These data offer further insight into the impact of chronic pancreatitis on patient health status and may serve as the basis for the development of disease-specific instruments, which are needed to measure the effect of therapeutic interventions on patient-derived health outcomes.

Patients with chronic pancreatitis experience substantial deteriorations in health-related quality of life compared with the general population. The Short Form-36 proved to be a feasible, reliable and valid measure for descriptive studies of patients with chronic pancreatitis, but ceiling effects may limit its usefulness as an outcome measure in the assessment of treatment effects.

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