Johannes M. Giesinger|Lisa M. Wintner|August Zabernigg|Eva?Maria Gamper|Anne Oberguggenberger|Monika Sztankay|Georg Kemmler|Bernhard Holzner
Assessing quality of life on the day of chemotherapy administration underestimates patients’ true symptom burden
The Netherlands Cancer Institute|Innsbruck Medical University|University of Applied Sciences Kufstein|Innsbruck Medical University|Innsbruck Medical University|Universität Innsbruck|Innsbruck Medical University|Innsbruck Medical University
chemotherapy trials quality life qol assessed mostly days chemotherapy administration ie eventdriven treatment follows fixed time intervals aftercare phase ie timedriven specific qol impairments treatment sideeffects known time dependent following different trajectories therefore acute problems likely missed assessments done infrequently inappropriate time points since planning supportive care interventions chemotherapy depends knowledge symptom trajectories information may substantial importance cliniciancancer patients receiving chemotherapy kufstein county hospital assessed using electronic version eortc qlqc30 day chemotherapy administration hospital one two weeks later assessments repeated via internet patients home assessments home hospital conducted using webbased software ches data analysed means linear mixed modelsa sample 54 chemotherapy outpatients participated electronic qol assessments hospital home 9 15 qol domains eortc qlqc30 patients reported increased burden one week chemotherapy administration compared day chemotherapy administration pronounced differences found fatigue constipation appetite lossour results indicate patients experience severe qol impairments week following chemotherapy administration period usually covered qol assessments chemotherapy trials may result underestimation true treatment burden findings suggest conduct qol assessments event timedriven rely specific hypotheses symptom functioning trajectories