Palliative Care Patients and their Quality of Life As Perceived By the Patient and their Caregiver

This quantitative pilot study examined the quality of life of palliative care patients as perceived by the patient and their caregiver. Patients with palliative care consults at The University of Colorado and The Medical Center of Aurora were asked to participate in this study. The McGill Quality of Life Questionnaire survey tool was selected to measure the patient\u27s quality of life due to its validity and reliability in measuring quality of life in the palliative care patient population. The McGill Quality of Life Questionnaire consists of five distinct subscales: physical well-being, physical symptoms, psychological symptoms, existential well-being, and support. Sixteen patients and eight caregivers completed the survey. Results: The results of paired samples tests demonstrated p-values that were not statistically significant for the five subscales measured. They indicated weak evidence against the null hypothesis. Based on the p-value results the null hypothesis can not be rejected. Based on the Cronbach\u27s alpha the internal consistency (reliability) for this study for the patient scores was 0.625 and for the families it was 0.606 which does not meet the standard of 0.70 or greater. If item number eight was removed from both the patient and the family questionnaires the Cronbach\u27s alpha increased to 0.691 and 0.706 respectively. The study indicated a weak correlation between the patient and family subscales. Discussion: Based on the small sample size the weak correlation could be anticipated. Further research is warranted to see if, given a larger sample size, the reliability could be improved and a finding illuminated. Detection of differences may have been missed due to the small sample size and inadequate illumination