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. 2016 Feb;57(1):6-15.
doi: 10.3325/cmj.2016.57.6.

Which questionnaires should we use to evaluate quality of life in patients with chronic graft-vs-host disease?

Zinaida Perić  1 , Lana Desnica, Nadira Duraković, Alen Ostojić, Dražen Pulanić, Ranka Serventi-Seiwerth, Ema Prenc, Grzegorz Basak, Radovan Vrhovac, Steven Z Pavletic, Damir Nemet
Affiliations

Which questionnaires should we use to evaluate quality of life in patients with chronic graft-vs-host disease?

Zinaida Perić et al. Croat Med J. 2016 Feb.

Abstract

Aim: To investigate the ability of two standard quality of life (QOL) questionnaires - The Short Form (36-item) Health Survey (SF-36) and The European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire-Core 30 (EORTC QLQ C30) to evaluate QOL in patients with chronic graft-vs-host disease (cGVHD) graded according to National Institutes of Health (NIH) consensus criteria.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study, QOL was assessed in patients who underwent allogeneic stem cell transplantation (allo-SCT) at the University Hospital Centre Zagreb and were alive and in complete remission for more than one year after allo-SCT.

Results: The study included 58 patients, 38 patients with cGVHD and 20 controls, patients without cGVHD. Patients with cGVHD scored according to the NIH criteria had significantly lower scores of global health status and lower QOL on all SF-36 subscales and most of QLQ C30 functional subscales (P<0.050 for all comparisons). Furthermore, patients with active cGVHD had significantly lower QOL scores than patients with inactive cGVHD, and this difference was most evident in physical functioning subscale of SF-36 (P=0.0007) and social functioning subscale of QLQ C30 (P=0.009).

Conclusion: cGVHD scored according to the NIH criteria is correlated with patient-reported QOL, particularly in the physical domains as detected by SF-36. QLQ C30 questionnaire adds more information on social functioning and should be used as a valuable tool in the evaluation of social domains in cGVHD patients.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Mean scores in The Short Form (36) Health Survey (SF-36) questionnaire subscales in controls and in patients with mild/moderate and severe chronic graft-vs-host disease (cGVHD).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Mean scores in The EORTC Quality of Life Questionnaire C30 (QLQ C30) questionnaire functional subscales in controls and in patients with mild/moderate and severe chronic graft-vs-host disease (cGVHD).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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