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Rationale: There is a lack of knowledge on symptoms and problems among non-cancer patients with life-threatening disease and how they differ from symptoms and problems experienced by cancer patients. It is important to use Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROM) to get the patients’ own experience of their symptoms and problems because clinicians may overlook symptoms. Aim and Objectives: To compare symptoms and problems reported on the PROM–questionnaire ‘PRO-Pall’ by patients with life-threatening cancer to patients with life-threatening kidney-, heart–and lung diseases. Method: The PRO-Pall data was gathered in real world practice by health professionals and it was used outside specialist palliative care among patients with life-threatening kidney-, heart-, lung, and cancer disease in three municipalities, three general practices, a research clinic, and eight hospital departments. Multivariate logistic regression assessed the odds ratio of symptoms and problems for non-cancer patients compared to cancer patients, adjusted for age and gender. Results: The study included 310 patients (8% kidney, 14% heart, 41% lung, 37% cancer,) with a mean age of 70.3 years. The initial results indicated that non-cancer patients had less severe physical symptoms, better emotional functioning, and better quality of life compared to cancer patients. Conclusion: The study offers initial insights into the symptoms and problems experienced by patients with life-threatening kidney, heart, lung, and cancer diseases. The initial results showed that cancer patients experienced more severe levels of various symptoms and problems compared to patients with life-threatening lung, heart, and kidney diseases.
Pedersen et al. (Fri,) studied this question.