Quality of life in terminally ill patients – a challenge for future research

Abstract

Summary Recent statistics reveal a substantial and even growing need for palliative care in present-day society. Providing adequate pain therapy remains a largely unsolved problem, mainly because of the small number of clinical studies in palliative medicine. Hence, clinical research is urgently needed – and therefore suitable tools to measure outcomes must be developed. Contrary to typical clinical studies, the usual outcome parameters such as decreased mortality and/or morbidity are unsuitable. Future research should focus on developing an instrument which allows to measure quality of life as the central outcome criterion of clinical studies in palliative medicine.