Health and Quality of Life Outcomes BioMed Central Research Open Access Is quality of life measurement likely to be a proxy for health needs assessment in patients with coronary artery disease? Mohsen Asadi-Lari*1, Chris Packham2 and David Gray1 Address: 1Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, University Hospital, Nottingham, NG7 2UH, UK and 2Division of Epidemiology & Public Health, University of Nottingham, UK Email: Mohsen Asadi-Lari* - msxma@; Chris Packham - ; David Gray - * Corresponding author Published: 04 October 2003 Health and Quality of Life Outcomes 2003, 1:50 This article is available from: Received: 19 June 2003 Accepted: 04 October 2003 © 2003 Asadi-Lari et al; licensee BioMed. | BioMed Central Health and Quality of Life Outcomes Research Open Access Is quality of life measurement likely to be a proxy for health needs assessment in patients with coronary artery disease Mohsen Asadi-Lari 1 Chris Packham2 and David Gray1 Address 1Division of Cardiovascular Medicine University Hospital Nottingham NG7 2UH UK and 2Division of Epidemiology Public Health University of Nottingham UK Email Mohsen Asadi-Lari - msxma@ Chris Packham - David Gray - Corresponding author Published 04 October 2003 Received 19 June 2003 Accepted 04 October 2003 Health and Quality of Life Outcomes 2003 1 50 r This article is available from http content l l 50 2003 Asadi-Lari et al licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article verbatim copying and redistribution of this article are permitted in all media for any purpose provided this notice is preserved along with the article s original URL. Abstract Background The identification of patients health needs is pivotal in optimising the quality of health care increasing patient satisfaction and directing resource allocation. Health needs are complex and not so easily evaluated as health-related quality of life HRQL which is becoming increasingly accepted as a means of providing a more global patient-orientated assessment of the outcome of health care interventions than the simple medical model. The potential of HRQL as a surrogate measure of healthcare needs has not been evaluated. Objectives and method A generic Short Form-12 SF-12 and a disease-specific questionnaire Seattle Angina Questionnaire SAQ were tested for their potential to predict health needs in patients with acute coronary disease. A wide range of healthcare needs were determined using a questionnaire specifically developed for this purpose. Results With the exception of information needs healthcare needs were highly correlated with health-related quality of life. .
