Assessment of Quality of Life by Patients in Pain

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The prevalence of untreated moderate to severe pain may be as high as 25 percent in the United States. In order to measure the effectiveness of treatment, outcome measures of a patient's perceptions have become increasingly important in hospital and health settings. Questionnaires are the only vehicle presently used to assess Quality of Life (QOL) from the standpoint of the patient. The objective of this Phase I proposal is to develop a computerized judgment method, not based on a questionnaire format, allowing health professionals to quickly determine perceived QOL of patients entering a hospital or clinic for treatment. Patients will use visual analogue scales (VAS) to adjust the length of bars on the computer screen to indicate overall QOL and QOL for each of 20 variables. The approach is referred to as the "Clustered Rating Method (CRM)." The user actively creates a QOL profile representing the positive or negative salience of variables such as health status, energy level, and home life. The main advantages of this method are (a) quantitative interval scale measures are obtained and (b) data collection and analysis is efficient and inexpensive. The software will be available for the two most common computer platforms (Windows & Macintosh). PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATION: The software assessing quality-of-life variables for patients will be sold to hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies and disaility examiners.