Physicians' attitudes about quality-of-life issues in hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Blood 2004 Oct 01;104(7):2194-200
Date
06/17/2004Pubmed ID
15198954DOI
10.1182/blood-2003-07-2430Scopus ID
2-s2.0-4644235230 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site) 61 CitationsAbstract
Studies investigating quality of life (QOL) after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation demonstrate the spectrum of QOL outcomes awaiting survivors. Nevertheless, how transplantation physicians interpret and apply QOL information to clinical practice is poorly understood. We conducted a cross-sectional survey of transplantation physicians to address these issues and received 180 (24%) responses from physicians in 29 countries. Seventy-two percent reported that their patients are willing to accept poor QOL for a small chance of cure. Only 28% said that QOL considerations "often" or "almost all the time" enter into patients' decisions about transplantation. This contrasted with physicians' reported attention to QOL in their discussions with patients. Although 53% of physicians reported using QOL results to modify practice, 55% would be more likely to use these data if they were more understandable. To ensure generalizability of the results, a validation sample was randomly selected, and these 85 physicians (response rate, 76%) confirmed the findings of the original survey. Given the extensive data regarding posttransplantation QOL, resources should be devoted to exploring how patients and physicians use these data in clinical care and in devising methods to ensure that QOL results are interpretable and relevant to patients and physicians.
Author List
Lee SJ, Joffe S, Kim HT, Socie G, Gilman AL, Wingard JR, Horowitz MM, Cella D, Syrjala KLAuthor
Mary M. Horowitz MD, MS Professor in the Medicine department at Medical College of WisconsinMESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold
Adaptation, PsychologicalAttitude of Health Personnel
Attitude to Health
Female
Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation
Humans
Male
Physicians
Quality of Life
Surveys and Questionnaires
