| Abstract: |
Quality of life is an important focus of integrative oncology research. The choice of an appropriate way to measure quality of life is therefore a key concern. A common error of researchers has been to focus on whether a quality-of-life measure has been "validated." This may be a necessary condition for choice of end point, but it is certainly not sufficient. It is easily shown that interventions that undoubtedly improve quality of life, such as epoetin alfa for chemotherapy anemia, do not have an important impact on items in some validated quality-of-life scales (eg, "I trust my doctor") and therefore do not improve quality-of-life scores. Investigators are advised to move beyond validation as a criterion for choosing quality-of-life end points and to focus instead on the specific content of different potential measures. A particularly important concern is whether a prior trial showing a statistically significant difference on a specific quality-of-life scale is published as this would demonstrate that scores on the scale improve if patients respond to treatment. In many cases, it is preferable to use specific symptoms, such as pain or fatigue, as opposed to more generic quality-of-life scales. |
