"Automated Screening and Recording of Quality of Life Data"

Measurement of quality of life is possible using standardised questionnaires. Patients may be screened for psychosocial morbidity and monitored using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and the EORTC QLQ-C30 developed for each cancer site.

These and related questionnaires have now been used in clinical trials and for screening patients for psychosocial morbidity, as indicators of prognosis and for judging the effects of clinical interventions.

It will be difficult to take this field forward unless easy automated methods are developed for routine use of this approach in clinical practice, routine and inexpensive use in clinical research and application in very large numbers for the evaluation of the impact of health service changes on quality of life outcomes.

The researchers propose to develop and evaluate automated methods for measuring quality of life data in cancer patients based on touchscreen monitors and computers, as well as an optical analysis of questionnaires and direct links from scanning devices into computerised databases.

Publications

Wright, E.P., Smith, A.B., Cull, A., Velikova, G., Gould, A., Forman, D., Perren, T.J., Brown, J., Stead, M., & Selby, P.J. Automated screening and recording of quality of life data: A comparison of data capture methods. Psycho-Oncology. 1998; 7, no.1: p67.

Galina Velikova, Laura Botth, Adam B Smith, Paul M Brown, Pamela Lynch, Julia M Brown, Peter J Selby.  Measuring Quality of Life in routine oncology practice improves communication and patient well-being: a randomised controlled trial.  Journal of Clinical Oncology (2004) 22:714-724.

Presentations

Velikova G, Wright EP, Smith AB, Cull Am Gould A, Forman D, Perren TJ, Brown J, Stead M, & Selby PJ. Effect of mode of administration of Quality of Life (QL) Measures on patients responses. Scientific Meeting of the European Society for Psychosocial Oncology, Stockholm, Sweden, June 1998.

Wright, EP, Smith AB, Cull A, Velikova G, Gould A, Forman D, Perren TJ, Brown J, Stead M, & Selby PJ. 14^th Annual Conference of the British Psychosocial Oncology Society, December 1997.

Technical Workshops/Presentations

Smith, AB., et al. Touchscreen administration of the QLQ-C30. EORTC Quality of Life Study Group meeting, April 1998.

Smith AB., et al. Automated collection of QL data. Nottingham International Breast Cancer Conference, October 1997.

Smith AB., et al. Automated QL. Meeting of Clinical Psychologists Working in Oncology, October 1997.

Poster presentations

Smith AB, Wright EP, Cull A, Forman D, Peren TJ, Velikova G, & Selby PJ. Automated screening and recording of quality of life data: A comparison of data capture methods. Association of Physicians of Great Britain and Ireland Annual Meeting, April 1998.

Smith AB, Wright EP, Cull A, Forman D, Gould A, Perren TJ, Velikova G, & Selby PJ. Automated screening and recording of quality of life data: A comparison of data capture methods. ICRF colloquium, March 1997.

Further information may be obtained from:

Professor Peter Selby
Chairman R&D Expert Advisory Group on Cancer
Institute for Cancer Studies
University of Leeds
St James' University Hospital
Beckett Street
Leeds    LS9 7TF
UK

http://cancermed.leeds.ac.uk/~qol