title: The relation between clinical scores and quality-of-life in long-term follow-up.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Quality-of-life and severity scores are both popular measures in medicine. For deep venous obstruction, the VEINES-QOL/Sym and venous clinical severity score (VCSS) are widely used. Combining a patient-reported outcome with a clinical severity score should give a more sensitive outcome for treatment results. To establish and compare their suitability for deep venous disease, we compared the outcomes of both scores in a group of patients who were interventionally treated for deep venous disease.
  
  
  METHODS
  The venous clinical severity scores and VEINES-QOL/Sym scores of a group of patients who had received interventional treatment for deep venous obstruction more than 12 months ago were compared at T0 and T12.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Both the Spearman's rho and Pearson's r show a very weak, negative correlation (statistically significant (p ≤ 0.05)), between the venous clinical severity score and VEINES-QOL at T12 and between the venous clinical severity score and the VEINES-SYM at both T0 and T12. T0 VCSS-VSYM: rho = -0.219 (p = 0.052), r = -0.236 (p = 0.037), T12 VCSS-VQOL: rho = -0.459 (p = 0.007), r = -0.379 (p = 0.030), T12 VCSS-VSYM: rho = -0.463 (p = 0.007), r = -0.432 (p = 0.012). This negative correlation was not statistically (p ≥ 0.05) confirmed for T0 VCSS-VSYM.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The physician-scored venous clinical severity score of patients treated for deep venous obstruction does not correlate well with their self-reported quality-of-life and symptom scores.
authors.affiliation: Department of Venous Surgery, European Venous Centre, Maastricht University Medical Centre, Maastricht, Netherlands fabio@catarinella.nl.
authors.forename: Fabio S
authors.initials: FS
authors.lastname: Catarinella
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Medical Technology Assessment, Maastricht University Medical Centre, Maastricht, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Fred H M
authors.initials: FH
authors.lastname: Nieman
authors.affiliation: Department of Venous Surgery, European Venous Centre, Maastricht University Medical Centre, Maastricht, Netherlands Department of Vascular Surgery, Uniklinikum Aachen, Aachen, Germany.
authors.forename: Cees H A
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Wittens
mesh_terms: D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011788:Quality of Life; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D013997:Time Factors; D020246:Venous Thrombosis / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000628:therapy*
keywords: Quality-of-life; VCSS; VEINES-QOL/Sym; deep venous obstruction; patient-reported outcome; severity score; venous clinical severity score