A German version of the Palliative Performance Scale (PPS) as a supportive structure to assess survival in palliative patients

The original English version of the palliative performance scale (PPS) has been used for two decades to describe the functional status of palliative patients. Based on clinical parameters PPS helps to estimate the survival time of palliative patients: the higher the functional status the longer the survival. This is interesting for patients, their family caregivers and health care professionals in order to plan for care. Until now there has not been published an official German version of the PPS. The functional status via a German version of the PPS of 394 patients of a palliative consulting team and their survival times were analyzed. Kaplan-Meier-curves were drawn and tested for differences. The hypothesis was tested if functional status using the German version of the PPS and survival are correlated. In this population differences in survival could clearly be shown for any category of PPS. This German version of the PPS is a useful and possible tool to estimate survival time of palliative patients using just clinical information.