Evaluation of the clinical usefulness of a health-related quality of life questionnaire in patients with prostate cancer.

OBJECTIVES The PROSQoLI questionnaire evaluates health related quality of life in patients with advanced prostate cancer. Although its utility in different clinical settings has never been assessed, its brevity and good measurement properties make its use recommendable in clinical practice. The objective is to evaluate the clinical usefulness of PROSQoLI in clinical treatment decision-making in patients with prostate cancer. MATERIALS AND METHODS An observational, prospective longitudinal and multi-center study conducted in different Spanish centers. Sociodemographic and clinical data of patients and researchers were collected. Each patient fulfilled PROSQoLI questionnaire in each visit. Besides, physicians answered a survey about clinical usefulness of PROSQoLI questionnaire. RESULTS The mean age of patients was 74.7 (7.4) years (standard deviation) and of researchers 51.8 (9.7) years. The usefulness in clinical decision-making was considered high by 66.1% of physicians; regarding questionnaire characteristics 71.3% of physicians considered it highly useful and 73.4% of them regarding doctor-patient communication. CONCLUSIONS The use of health-related quality of life questionnaires improves doctor-patient communication. It is demonstrated that PROSQoLI can be an additional tool in clinical decision-making as well as a means of facilitating doctor-patient communication.