GRADUATED WHO ANALOG AND SATISFACTION SCALES FOR THE ASSESSMENT OF QUALITY-OF-LIFE IN CLINICAL-TRIALS IN CANCER-PATIENTS

There is growing consensus that patient-based criteria for assessment of the quality of life should supplement the judgements of physicians. There is, however, no widely accepted instrument that fulfills all stipulations. We therefore propose a questionnaire that can be supplemented according to specific problems in various clinical trials as well as under clinical routine conditions. Its modules have been tested for reliability, responsiveness to change, content, concurrent validity, predictive validity, feasibility, and compliance in a prospective study using 488 single assessments with a total of 31,073 evaluable answers and a total of 2,961 curves. The questionnaire is proposed as a compromise between desired information and the patient's compliance.