The assessment of health status among patients with COPD

Abstract

Survival and physiological measures alone do not represent the full experiences of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Reducing the personal and social burden of disease by improving patients9 symptoms, functional status and quality of life are also important goals.There has been a substantial increase in the use of newly developed tools that measure health status and it is important for clinicians and researchers to understand these instruments9 strengths and weaknesses in providing insight into a patient9s condition and experience.Relying only on mortality and physiological outcomes could blind a clinician to significant benefits patients may receive from a treatment. A growing body of research utilises end-points assessed directly by patients whose self-reported health status includes health-related quality of life and functional status.This article reviews major concepts and methods in health-status assessments for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which will have an important role in assessing the efficacy and effectiveness of new treatments. Eur Respir J 2003; 21: Suppl. 41, 36s-45s.

Avaliando a DPOC pela perspectiva do paciente

“…(4)(5)(6)(7)(8) Such questionnaires must be reliable, valid and responsive. They should provide similar results when the same phenomenon is evaluated under different circumstances (reliability), accurately measure what should be evaluated (validity) and be able to detect changes over time or those related to interventions (responsiveness).…”

“…Among the specific questionnaires are the Chronic Respiratory Questionnaire, the SGRQ and the Seattle Obstructive Lung Disease Questionnaire. (7,11) A recurring question when we design a study is which questionnaire we will choose. This choice is not simple since none is perfect, and none fulfills all the requirements.…”

Fatigue, quality of life and health status in sarcoidosis

“…Health status refers to the impact of disease on patients' physical, psychological and social functioning. QoL refers to patients' perception or evaluation of their functioning [37,38], i.e. how satisfied or bothered they are with their functioning [39].…”

How do common chronic conditions affect health-related quality of life?

“…14 Despite this advancement in measuring quality of life, research has poorly represented combinations of chronic conditions. The papers that do exist have tended to focus on a single chronic disease, for example chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) 15 or diabetes, 16 yet practical observation indicates that such patients often suffer with multiple problems. 17,18 Even the existing and widely used reference values for EQ-5D in the UK do not currently take account of comorbidity.…”