ABSTRACT
Over the past several decades, advancements have been made in the treatment of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Supplemental oxygen therapy and smoking cessation have been demonstrated to improve traditional outcome measures such as mortality (1,2) and rate of FEV1 decline (3). Although these endpoints are important, they do not represent the only focus of patient care. Reducing the burden of disease by improving health status including improving patients’ functional status, symptoms, and quality of life, are also important goals. There is increasing recognition that health status and especially health-related quality of life are important outcomes of medical care. The development of new tools to measure health status has contributed to an exponential use of these instruments in the past 2 decades. As more of these tools are being used and reported, it is important for clinicians and researchers to have an understanding of the strengths and limitations of these instruments. This chapter reviews major concepts in health status assessment. In particular, we will review the tools that have been developed and used to
The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Department of Veterans Affairs.
