Patients' perceptions and patient-reported outcomes in progressive-fibrosing interstitial lung diseases

The effects of interstitial lung disease (ILD) create a significant burden on patients, unsettling almost every domain of their lives, disrupting their physical and emotional well-being and impairing their quality of life (QoL). Because many ILDs are incurable, and there are limited reliably-effective, life-prolonging treatment options available, the focus of many therapeutic interventions has been on improving or maintaining how patients with ILD feel and function, and by extension, their QoL. Such patient-centred outcomes are best assessed by patients themselves through tools that capture their perceptions, which inherently incorporate their values and judgements. These patient-reported outcome measures (PROs) can be used to assess an array of constructs affected by a disease or the interventions implemented to treat it. Here, we review the impact of ILD that may present with a progressive-fibrosing phenotype on patients' lives and examine how PROs have been used to measure that impact and the effectiveness of therapeutic interventions.

Source: European Respiratory Review - December 21, 2018 Category: Respiratory Medicine Authors: Swigris, J. J., Brown, K. K., Abdulqawi, R., Buch, K., Dilling, D. F., Koschel, D., Thavarajah, K., Tomic, R., Inoue, Y. Tags: Interstitial and orphan lung disease Review Source Type: research