The clinical significance of quality of life changes has little to do with the QOL as a measure, but is rather a reflection on the novelty of the measures and researcher's inexperience in their use. This article discusses possible ways of evaluating quality of life measures in terms of patient-clinician interactions and how the clinician can assess the importance of these changes of QOL in terms of treatment and management of disease.
Key words Clinical significance - epidemiological studies - outcomes research - quality of life
Presented at Quality of Life Assessment, DIA Workshop, Nice, France, 23 February, 1993.