title: Effect of oral tumour size on quality of life judgements by health care professionals working with head and neck cancer patients: a pilot study.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To investigate whether information about the size of an oral tumour influences the multi-disciplinary team's judgement about the quality of life of head and neck cancer patients.
  
  
  METHODS
  Using a between-group design, two groups of health care professionals rated a hypothetical patient on 20 outcome variables. The patient description was identical for both groups, except for the tumour size.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Comparison of variable ratings revealed only three significant differences between the groups' predictions and no consistency within conditions, suggesting that the participants held few common assumptions about the impact of tumour size on a range of patient experiences.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The lack of agreement amongst the health care professionals suggests that, where humane judgements are used in treatment decisions for head and neck cancer patients, these may be random and inconsistent. Consequently, patients should have a direct input into treatment decisions, via formalized quality of life data.
authors.affiliation: Head and Neck Unit, University Hospital Birmingham National Health Service Foundation Trust, Birmingham, UK. kate.reid@uhb.nhs.uk
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Reid
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Hicks
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Herron-Marx
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Parmar
mesh_terms: D003657:Decision Making; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009062:Mouth Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology* / Q000523:psychology; D010348:Patient Care Team; D010865:Pilot Projects; D011594:Psychometrics; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care; D011788:Quality of Life / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D047368:Tumor Burden