ABSTRACT
Introduction: In clinical practice the assessment of cancer patients’ QoL is used frequently. It guides the individualized treatment and provides feedback on care, aiming at the best outcome of the treatment and the patients’ autonomous well-informed consent. The present review is the second part of the feature about cancer patients’ QoL.
The aim of this review is to describe the questionnaires of cancer patients’ QoL which are widely applied in the daily nursing practice. Furthermore, to guide the researchers towards the most appropriate choice of instrument for their study.
Review of the literature. The writing of the article was completed after reviewing international and Greek bibliography of the last two decades which deals with methodological issues in the QoL assessment. Bibliography currently offers many instruments with different characteristics while the limitation of the studies and the puzzling over the methodology and interpretation of the results can constitute a “beacon” of guidance for the researchers.
Conclusions. In order to choose and apply the right tool for specific studies the nurse researcher has to use correct judgment and Knowledge. In that way the correct methodology approach combined with the appropriate instrument can guarantee the quality of the results of the study.
Key words: questionnaires, quality of life, cancer, instruments, validity, psychometric properties.
