TY - JOUR
T1 - Characteristics of patients reporting symptoms by open-ended questions in specialist palliative care
AU - Rojas-Concha, Leslye
AU - Petersen, Morten Aagaard
AU - Groenvold, Mogens
N1 - Articles published in the DMJ are “open access”. This means that the articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial License, which permits any non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
PY - 2021/7/8
Y1 - 2021/7/8
N2 - INTRODUCTION: Comprehensive symptom assessment may be achieved by combining patient-reported outcome instruments with open-ended questions. The open-ended "Write In three Symptoms/Problems" (WISP) instrument allows patients to report symptoms and problems (S/Ps) not covered by the EORTC QLQ-C15-PAL. This study investigated whether sociodemographic or clinical variables were associated with the reporting of additional S/Ps on WISP.METHODS: Data from the Danish Palliative Care Database included all patients admitted to specialist palliative care in Denmark in 2016 who completed the EORTC QLQ-C15-PAL. The associations between patient characteristics and the reporting of a) any additional symptom/problem and b) each of the ten most prevalent additional S/Ps (oedema, dizziness, cough, sweats, diarrhoea, dry mouth, incontinence, sore mouth, vomiting and dysphagia) were investigated using multiple logistic regression.RESULTS: In total, 1,295 patients reported additional S/Ps on WISP. Reporting any additional symptom/problem was associated with having younger children and living with someone. The reporting of the most prevalent additional S/Ps was associated with cancer diagnosis, having younger children, living with someone and being an outpatient.CONCLUSIONS: This study gives new insights into the characteristics of patients reporting S/Ps that are not assessed by standard measures. The results may assist clinicians in improving palliative care.FUNDING: The salary of the first author was financed by Becas Chile-CONICYT.TRIAL REGISTRATION: not relevant.
AB - INTRODUCTION: Comprehensive symptom assessment may be achieved by combining patient-reported outcome instruments with open-ended questions. The open-ended "Write In three Symptoms/Problems" (WISP) instrument allows patients to report symptoms and problems (S/Ps) not covered by the EORTC QLQ-C15-PAL. This study investigated whether sociodemographic or clinical variables were associated with the reporting of additional S/Ps on WISP.METHODS: Data from the Danish Palliative Care Database included all patients admitted to specialist palliative care in Denmark in 2016 who completed the EORTC QLQ-C15-PAL. The associations between patient characteristics and the reporting of a) any additional symptom/problem and b) each of the ten most prevalent additional S/Ps (oedema, dizziness, cough, sweats, diarrhoea, dry mouth, incontinence, sore mouth, vomiting and dysphagia) were investigated using multiple logistic regression.RESULTS: In total, 1,295 patients reported additional S/Ps on WISP. Reporting any additional symptom/problem was associated with having younger children and living with someone. The reporting of the most prevalent additional S/Ps was associated with cancer diagnosis, having younger children, living with someone and being an outpatient.CONCLUSIONS: This study gives new insights into the characteristics of patients reporting S/Ps that are not assessed by standard measures. The results may assist clinicians in improving palliative care.FUNDING: The salary of the first author was financed by Becas Chile-CONICYT.TRIAL REGISTRATION: not relevant.
KW - Child
KW - Humans
KW - Neoplasms/therapy
KW - Palliative Care
KW - Patient Reported Outcome Measures
KW - Quality of Life
KW - Surveys and Questionnaires
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 34356013
SN - 1603-9629
VL - 68
JO - Danish Medical Journal
JF - Danish Medical Journal
IS - 8
M1 - A12200916
ER -