Computergestützte Visualisierung von Daten der Lebensqualität zur Therapieoptimierung am Beispiel von Patienten mit kolorektalem Karzinom

Introduction: A variety of questionnaires (EORTC-QLQ30, SF-36 a. o.) are available to assess quality of life (QL). A lot of data are collected with these questionnaires but the interpretation of these data is very complex. Methods: We developed a method to visualize these complex data: the QL profile. In this profile different questions composing a particular QL dimension were aggregated and linearly transformed to a scale from 1 to 100. The resulting score values were graphically arranged to a comprehensive QL profile [1]. This procedure was repeated for each QL measurement (e.g. 2, 6, 9 etc. month after surgery). Results: We showed that these profiles are understandable for physicians not educated in QL measurement. The interpretation of the profiles sometimes leads to a different treatment of patients and shows that it is possible to control the quality of treatment any point of time. Conclusion: With our QL profiles it is possible to visualize complex data from QL-questionnaires in an intuitive comprehensible way. Therefore, QL questionnaires can become a routine tool for physicians to follow-up their patients.