Health Qual Life Out
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Health Qual Life Out · Jan 2010
Personality and the physician-patient relationship as predictors of quality of life of cardiac patients after rehabilitation.
Numerous studies document the influence of psychosocial variables on the course of coronary heart disease. This study examines the influence of personality traits (trait anger, cynicism) and aspects of the physician-patient relationship (promoting patient participation by the physician, active communication behavior of the patient, trust in the physician) on the health related quality of life (HRQOL) of cardiac patients after rehabilitation. ⋯ Low income, a high level of trait anger, and low patient participation are significant risk factors, even if a number of potential confounders are adjusted. Research is needed that shows which causal pathway low income functions on and what therapies in rehabilitation can mitigate the disadvantage of persons with a high level of trait anger. The providers should implement measures to actively integrate rehabilitation patients in treatment (e.g. encourage them to ask questions).
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Health Qual Life Out · Jan 2010
Response shift, recall bias and their effect on measuring change in health-related quality of life amongst older hospital patients.
Assessments of change in subjective patient reported outcomes such as health-related quality of life (HRQoL) are a key component of many clinical and research evaluations. However, conventional longitudinal evaluation of change may not agree with patient perceived change if patients' understanding of the subjective construct under evaluation changes over time (response shift) or if patients' have inaccurate recollection (recall bias). This study examined whether older adults' perception of change is in agreement with conventional longitudinal evaluation of change in their HRQoL over the duration of their hospital stay. It also investigated this level of agreement after adjusting patient perceived change for recall bias that patients may have experienced. ⋯ Agreement between conventional change and patient perceived change was not strong. A large proportion of this disagreement could be attributed to recall bias. To overcome the invalidating effect of response shift (on conventional change) and recall bias (on patient perceived change) a method of adjusting patient perceived change for recall bias has been described.
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Health Qual Life Out · Jan 2010
Health-related quality of life in vacuum-assisted breast biopsy: short-term effects, long-term effects and predictors.
The impact of Vacuum-assisted breast biopsy (VABB, 11-Gauge) upon Health-related Quality of Life (HRQoL) remains an open field. This study aims to: i) assess short-term (4 days after VABB) responses in terms of HRQoL after VABB, ii) evaluate long-term (18 months after VABB) responses, if any, and iii) examine whether these responses are modified by a variety of possible predictors (anthropometric, sociodemographic, lifestyle habits, breast-related parameters, reproductive history, VABB-related features and complications, seasonality). ⋯ The HRQoL profile of patients suggests that VABB exerts effects prior to its performance at a psychological level, immediately after its performance at a functioning-physical level and entails long-term effects associated with pain.
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Health Qual Life Out · Jan 2010
Multicenter Study Comparative StudyComparison of numerical and verbal rating scales to measure pain exacerbations in patients with chronic cancer pain.
Numerical rating scales (NRS), and verbal rating scales (VRS) showed to be reliable and valid tools for subjective cancer pain measurement, but no one of them consistently proved to be superior to the other. Aim of the present study is to compare NRS and VRS performance in assessing breakthrough or episodic pain (BP-EP) exacerbations. ⋯ Our results suggest that, in the measurement of cancer pain exacerbations, patients use NRS more appropriately than VRS and as such NRS should be preferred to VRS in this patient's population.
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Health Qual Life Out · Jan 2010
Multicenter Study Comparative StudyHealth-related quality of life before planned admission to intensive care: memory over three and six months.
The validity of Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQOL) recalled by ICU admitted patients have not been published. The aim of this study was to compare the baseline HRQOL measured before surgery and ICU admission with that recalled at 3 and 6 months in a population of patients with planned ICU admission after surgery. ⋯ The patients with planned ICU admission have a good memory of their health status as measured by EQ-5D in the period preceding surgery and ICU admission, especially at three months.