Quality of life after breast cancer: Assessment, relevance and effective interventions

AbstractHealth-related quality of life is of great relevance for breast cancer patients at all stages, both during treatment and in the medium and long term after treatment. Quality of life is becoming increasingly important as an end point in licensing studies for new treatments and in scientific studies comparing different therapies. In addition to a brief global assessment of quality of life, other important patient-reported outcomes should be assessed. Patients with breast cancer often report limitations due to fatigue, sleep problems, sexual and/or climacteric problems, cognitive problems, mental problems and loss of physical performance. Quality of life after breast cancer could probably be further increased if education, screening and treatment of these symptoms were a systematic part of oncological care.

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An Electronic Patient-Reported Outcome Tool for the FACT-B (Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Breast) Questionnaire for Measuring the Health-Related Quality of Life in Patients With Breast Cancer: Reliability Study (Preprint)

10.2196/preprints.10004 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Lina Maria Matthies ◽

Florin-Andrei Taran ◽

Lucia Keilmann ◽

Andreas Schneeweiss ◽

Elisabeth Simoes ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Breast Cancer ◽

Quality Of Life ◽

Metastatic Breast ◽

Health Related Quality ◽

Breast Cancer Patients ◽

Patient Reported ◽

Parallel Forms ◽

Related Quality ◽

Health Related

BACKGROUND The most frequent malignant disease in women is breast cancer. In the metastatic setting, quality of life is the primary therapeutic goal, and systematic treatment has only a limited effect on survival rates; therefore, the concept of the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and measurement of patient-reported outcomes (PROs) are gaining more and more importance in the therapy setting of diseases such as breast cancer. One of the frequently used questionnaires for measuring the HRQoL in patients with breast cancer is the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Breast (FACT-B). Currently, paper-based surveys still predominate, as only a few reliable and validated electronic-based questionnaires are available. ePRO tools for the FACT-B questionnaire with proven reliability are missing so far. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to analyze the reliability of tablet-based measurement of FACT-B in the German language in adjuvant (curative) and metastatic breast cancer patients. METHODS Paper- and tablet-based questionnaires were completed by a total of 106 female adjuvant and metastatic breast cancer patients. All patients were required to complete the electronically based (ePRO) and paper-based version of the FACT-B. A frequency analysis was performed to determine descriptive sociodemographic characteristics. Both dimensions of reliability (parallel forms reliability using Wilcoxon test and test of internal consistency using Spearman ρ) and agreement rates for single items, Kendall tau for each subscale, and total score were analyzed. RESULTS High correlations were shown for both dimensions of reliability (parallel forms reliability and internal consistency) in the patients’ response behavior between paper-based and electronically based questionnaires. Regarding the reliability test of parallel forms, no significant differences were found in 35 of 37 single items, while significant correlations in the test for consistency were found in all 37 single items, in all 5 sum individual item subscale scores, as well as in total FACT-B score. CONCLUSIONS The ePRO version of the FACT-B questionnaire is reliable for patients with breast cancer in both adjuvant and metastatic settings, showing highly significant correlations with the paper-based version in almost all questions all subscales and the total score.

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