The watery eye quality of life (WEQOL) questionnaire: a patient-reported outcome measure for surgically amenable epiphora.

Objective Or Purpose: To develop and test a patient-reported outcome measure for assessing health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in surgically amenable epiphora.

Design: Questionnaire development and validation study.

Participants: 201 patients with a cause of epiphora amenable to surgical intervention, recruited across three independent centres.

Developing Symptom Lists for People with Cancer Treated with Targeted Therapies.

Background: Targeted therapies (TTs) have revolutionised cancer treatment with their enhanced specificity of action. Compared with conventional therapies, TTs are delivered over a longer period and often have unusual symptom profiles. Patient-reported outcome measures such as symptom side-effect lists need to be developed in a time-efficient manner to enable a rapid and full evaluation of new treatments and effective clinical management OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to develop a set of TT-related symptoms and identify the optimal method for developing symptom lists.

Overlap of Depressive Symptoms with Health-Related Quality-of-Life Measures.

Because depressive symptoms are a part of health-related quality-of-life (HRQOL) measures, measures of depression will be empirically associated with HRQOL. We discuss examples of published research where authors ignored or did not fully account for overlap between depressive symptom and HRQOL measures. Future researchers need to recognize when their models include conceptually similar variables on the same side or both sides of the equation.

The short-term impact of methylprednisolone on patient-reported sleep in patients with advanced cancer in a randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind trial.

Purpose: Although corticosteroids are frequently used in patients with advanced cancer, few studies have examined the impact of these drugs on patient-reported sleep. We aimed to examine the short-term impact of methylprednisolone on patient-reported sleep in patients with advanced cancer.

Methods: Patient-reported sleep was a predefined secondary outcome in a prospective, randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind trial that evaluated the analgesic efficacy of corticosteroids in advanced cancer patients (18+), using opioids, and having pain ≥ 4 past 24 h (NRS 0-10).