Using patient-reported outcome assessments in clinical practice and their importance in risk management.

Patient-reported outcome (PRO) instruments are related to risk management programmes in that they are tools to measure the benefits and risks of exposure to pharmaceutical products from the patient's perspective. Clinical measures of improvement of certain conditions may not necessarily correlate with improvements in a patient's ability to perform daily activities. PRO data, when properly administered, collected, analysed and returned to physicians are a very useful source of information.

The quality of life and economic burden of neuropathy in diabetic patients in Germany in 2002--results from the Diabetic Microvascular Complications (DIMICO) study.

Objective: To describe the health-related quality of life (HRQOL), the resource utilization and annual costs associated with diabetic neuropathy (DN) in Germany.

Methods: In this retrospective, observational study German internists, diabetologists and general practitioners provided information on 185 adult type 1 and type 2 diabetic patients with DN. Health-related quality of life (HRQOL) was assessed using generic and disease specific questionnaires.

The economic burden of nephropathy in diabetic patients in Germany in 2002.

Objective: The objective was to describe the resource use and costs due to predefined stages of nephropathy in diabetic patients and to evaluate its economical impact in Germany.

Design And Methods: In this retrospective, observational study information about socio-demographics, clinical characteristics and resource use on adult type 1 and type 2 patients with nephropathy in diabetic patients were collected from 23 general practitioners, 10 internists and 24 diabetologists, who were randomly selected from a physicians' database. Based on these results average costs per patient were evaluated for each complication stage from the societal perspective and the perspective of the health insurance.