Patient Quality of Life Research Input

[OneTyme]

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Greetings, I am an MS1 that is interested in RadOnc. I am pursuing research this summer in my school's RadOnc department with an attending aimed at comparing patient quality of life and their toxicity levels during treatment (specifically acute toxicity).

While we are using a well established QOL survey for the research, I have the opportunity to add a few open-ended question in order to add a qualitative aspect to the project. (I am currently looking at prior projects to come up with some questions.)

I was wondering if anybody here could give me some input on questions that would make sense to a RadOnc practitioner. (For example; what do you use to evaluate a patient's adverse reactions, is there a conversational prompt that you use specifically for this in your practice, or are there specific markers in effects on daily life that you look for?) I have a good idea of how to measure quality of life from a social science perspective in undergrad but I'm having trouble making the leap to perceiving the problem from a medical practitioner perspective.

I really appreciate any input.

 

[radiaterMike]

I would use established, validated QOL measures (as you seem to suggest you will) and use standard toxicity criteria (i.e. Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events- or CTCAE).

 

[OneTyme]

I would use established, validated QOL measures (as you seem to suggest you will) and use standard toxicity criteria (i.e. Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events- or CTCAE).

Thank you for the advice.

 

[Seldon1985]

There are several scales used to grade toxicities after treatment (for example, GI/GU/Erectile dysfunction problems after prostate cancer therapy). The CTCAE (v4 I believe is the most up-to-date?) and RTOG have scales. Check them out and see if that helps.

 

[deleted4401]

I'm not sure how much people do it, but I guess you could ask how those side effects make them feel and collect those quotes. It's pretty touchy-feely stuff that tends to get published by The Red Journal and featured at ASTRO, but makes no real difference in physician practice 🙂

S

 

[OneTyme]

I'm not sure how much people do it, but I guess you could ask how those side effects make them feel and collect those quotes. It's pretty touchy-feely stuff that tends to get published by The Red Journal and featured at ASTRO, but makes no real difference in physician practice 🙂

S

That is more along the lines of what I was thinking. We have the toxicity scale and QOL pretty well sorted out. The attending is just giving me a chance to add, as you so eloquently put it, "touchy-feely" stuff to augment the research. If nothing else, it will help give me some perspective into patient perception as I pursue my RadOnc interest.