Which domains of thyroid-related quality of life are most relevant? Patients and clinicians provide complementary perspectives

Abstract

Objective: To identify how thyroid diseases impact the patients' lives and to select the most relevant quality of life (QoL) issues for a thyroid-specific questionnaire.

Design: Fifteen thyroid experts and 80 thyroid outpatients (14 with nontoxic goiter, 12 nodular toxic goiter, 21 Graves' disease, 17 thyroid-associated ophthalmopathy, and 16 primary hypothyroidism) were interviewed.

Methods: The relevance of 138 thyroid disease-related issues was rated during interviews. For each issue, three relevance measures were obtained: a diagnosis-specific patient rating, a diagnosis-specific expert rating, and a combined overall patient/expert rating. The 75 most relevant issues overall and the 15 most relevant issues in each patient category were selected.

Results: Based on the above, 92 issues were selected, covering a broad range of clinical and QoL domains. Across patient groups, broader QoL domains were most relevant, especially fatigue and emotional susceptibility. However, when focusing on individual patient groups, diagnosis-related physical symptoms were very relevant too. Patients rated issues about psychosocial problems and impact on daily life as more relevant, whereas clinicians focused on thyroid-characteristic issues.

Conclusions: A broad range of QoL issues and physical symptoms are relevant for thyroid patients, particularly fatigue and emotional susceptibility. Patients and clinicians offer complementary perspectives on relevance.