The Comprehensive Medical Care and Psychosocial Service providers had indistinguishable curves that maintained patient-rated quality of life for the longest periods of time. The Managed Medical Care programs were not as successful at maintaining quality of life. These results statistically control for the initial baseline level of quality of life, differences due to psychosocial and behavioral comorbidities, and other patient characteristics. More than half of the individuals, in this progressive disease, may be maintained at the same or higher quality of life for a period of time approaching the maximum in our evaluation study, of about three years.
Programs are the most likely to be maintained.
We did not use the data from one Managed Care medical site in this analysis specifically because the goal of the project was to treat people at the end of their lives when quality of life is low. All other projects, including those whose data are used here, are primarily providers of outpatient medical care, rather than home health care. In interpreting this Knowledge Item, and all others in this section on Quality of Life and Health , remember that the ratings of quality of life, symptom impact, and healthcare utilization are based on patient self reports. Acceptable Uses and Limitations . Click the Model Programs button above for descriptions of the projects that contributed to this specific Knowledge Item, a list of key staff, and project grant numbers.