title: Is there a difference in patient and physician quality of life evaluation in pelvic organ prolapse?
abstract: Quality of life (QoL) assessment is important in the evaluation of women with urogenital prolapse. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between physician and patient-assessed QoL using the Prolapse Quality of Life questionnaire (PQoL). Patients with symptomatic prolapse were recruited and asked to complete a PQoL. A second PQoL was filled in by the physician blinded to the patient responses, on the basis of a detailed urogynaecological history. These data were analysed by an independent statistician assessing concordance between patient and physician assessment (weighted kappa analysis: individual questions, Wilcoxon's signed rank test: QoL scores). Weighted kappa showed poor concordance between the patient and physician responses; mean Kappa: 0.46, range 0.020-0.83. The physician underestimated QoL score in five out of nine domains (mean 8.8%) and overestimated QoL score in four out of nine domains (mean 4.3%). This study confirms that QoL outcomes based on the physicians' perspective may not be valid.
authors.affiliation: Department of Urogynaecology, King's College Hospital, Denmark Hill, London, UK. sushmasrikrishna@hotmail.com
authors.forename: Sushma
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Srikrishna
authors.forename: Dudley
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Robinson
authors.forename: Linda
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Cardozo
authors.forename: Juan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Gonzalez
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D010361:Patients / Q000523:psychology*; D010820:Physicians / Q000523:psychology*; D011788:Quality of Life; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014596:Uterine Prolapse / Q000523:psychology*