Quality of life in patients with chronic pancreatitis – Possibilities of measurement of the phenomenon in research

ObjectiveTo discover which of the measurement tools were used for the assessment of quality of life (QoL) in patients with chronic pancreatitis (CP); to search for a specific tool that was validated and standardized directly for CP; to summarize the main areas of symptomatology that dominated the decrease overall in QoL in patients with CP.MethodsThe method of the overall conceptualization approach was the analysis, comparison, critical discussion and summarization of the available results of studies researched between 2000 and 2014 in relevant databases. The analyzed studies were included in the selective sample according to predefined criteria. This paper presents the results of a partial objective regarding a comprehensive research project.ResultsThe identified tools include the following questionnaires: SQUALA (1 study); SF-36 (4 studies); SF-12 (6 studies); EORTC QLQ-C30 in the form of QLQ-PAN26 (3 studies). A specific and new tool is PANQOLI (1 study). The most significant factor of decreased QoL included pain; other factors were: chronic diarrhoea, digestion issues, diabetes mellitus, severity and length of disease, number of relapses and comorbidities, loss of job, unemployment, early retirement, financial issues, sleeping issues, fatigue. On the contrary, the aetiology had no effect on QoL; the same applies to surgery or endoscopic therapies.ConclusionTo assess QoL the following questionnaires were used: subjective QoL questionnaires specific for chronic diseases, and a questionnaire originally intended for patients with tumour diseases. This shows a degree of interest in the area of QoL in CP patients. The sum of the findings can be used for a comparison between domestic results and to identify the dominant CP symptoms. A great challenge is the standardization and linguistic validation of the PANQOLI questionnaire in the Czech sociocultural environment.