A recent study found that adult Cystic fibrosis (CF) patients can provide important information that helps to predict their prognosis through Cystic fibrosis health-related quality of life questionnaires.

Researchers administered 223 adult CF patients the Cystic fibrosis health-related quality of life questionnaire (CFQoL), a validated self-assessment tool, and then followed the patients for 10 years.

"We wished to see whether patients themselves had clinically relevant insight to their disease, and we found that they did," says lead author Janice Abbott, PhD, University of Central Lancashire, England.

After controlling for demographic factors and the severity of the disease researchers found that several areas of patient-reported quality of life can help to predict mortality. Patients reporting a lower quality of life were more likely to die sooner than those who perceived their quality of life to be higher.

"The most surprising result was the importance of patient-reported pain in predicting survival in cystic-fibrosis," says Abbott. "This work provides credibility for the use of patient-reported measures in clinical trials in CF, as it provides evidence that patient-reported outcomes can predict mortality."