Health-related quality of life

Method

Patient-reported health-related quality of life score on whichever validated multi-domain instrument the source trial administered (SF-36, EQ-5D, WHOQOL, or a disease-specific questionnaire), pooled where the review did not name the instrument. The instrument, or the explicit fact that none was named, is recorded on the edge.

The method is part of the endpoint identity. Studies measuring the same quantity by a different method are held as separate endpoints.

Notes

The weakest node in the patient-reported set - a construct label rather than an instrument, and any edge naming a specific questionnaire belongs on that questionnaire's node instead. Its near-miss is CAT:outcome/karnofsky-performance-status, routinely called a quality of life measure in the oncology literature but in fact a CLINICIAN-RATED functional capacity scale, not patient-reported; the two disagree systematically, with clinicians rating function higher than patients rate their own wellbeing. Distinct also from CAT:outcome/activities-of-daily-living-score, which is observed self-care ability, and from single-item bother scores such as the IPSS quality-of-life item.