Quality of life in prostate cancer patients.

QOL is a multidimensional approach describing the patient’s perception of life in terms of physical, psychological and social factors. These include physical symptoms, social functioning, emotional functioning, treatment satisfaction, sexualityhntimacy, future orientation, occupational functioning, spiritual life, and economic status. Historically, indicators of physical function and subjective toxicity have often been measured by physicians in clinical trials. As QOL is subjective, it seems appropriate that it should be assessed by the patient, through interviews or self-administered questionnaires [ 11. Ad hoc study-specific questionnaires, designed for a single study often suffer from inadequate psychometric properties and are not recommended. During the last decade several disease-specific questionnaires have been designed and validated, including the Symptom Distress Scale [2], Functional Living Index: Cancer [3], Medical Outcome Study [4], and the Rotterdam Symptom CheckList [ 5 ] . The authors recommend the EORTC Core Quality of Life Questionnaire [6] for all EORTC trials in order to gain experience with the instrument and to compare ratings between patient groups. Practical guidelines for QOL research are shown in Table I [7].