Functional Status & Quality of Life
Tools for Assessing Functional Status
The following resources and tools were developed specifically to assess the functional status of persons with chronic kidney disease:
- Kidney Disease Quality of Life (K-DQOL) The Kidney Disease Quality of Life Working Group developed the KDQOL Instruments, Guidelines and Resources in an effort to assess the relationship between functional status and well-being in end stage renal disease and there impact on outcomes measures.
- The Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) program is a public-private initiative to develop standardized surveys of patients' experiences with ambulatory and facility-level care. https://www.cahps.ahrq.gov/default.asp. The In-Center Hemodialysis Survey asks adults with end-stage renal disease about their experiences with the facility that provides their hemodialysis.
Following are some general resources and tools that may be helpful in the assessment of the functional status of persons with chronic kidney disease:
- The Geriatric Depression Scale (short form) is available at http://www.stanford.edu/~yesavage/GDS.html
- The Beck Depression Inventory Fast Screen (BDI-FS) for medical patients is copyrighted and is available for a fee from Pearson (formerly Hartcourt Assessment).
- The Physicians Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9 ) is copyrighted, and is available in English and Spanish. To read and agree to the terms of usage, locate scoring instructions and register for download go to http://www.depression-primarycare.org/clinicians/toolkits/ .
- The Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale-Short Form (CESD-SF) QOL tool is used to measure current depressive symptoms. Items on the short forms contain simple vocabulary in short sentences. The CESD-SF can be administered by self-report or interview. A pdf version is available for download at http://patienteducation.stanford.edu/research/cesd10.pdf .
Following are some resources for promoting quality and excellence in End-of-Life-Care:
- Promoting Excellence in End-of-Life Care was a national program launched by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation with a mission of improving care and quality of life for dying Americans and their families. To view the recommendations of the End-Stage Renal Disease Workgroup go to http://www.mywhatever.com/cifwriter/library/41/pe3647.html
- The Kidney End-of-Life Care Coalition embraced the recommendations of the End-Stage Renal Disease Workgroup and created an arrary of resources and materials to assist kidney patients, their caregives, family members and friends to make informed choicesregarding end of life. To access visit http://kidneyeol.org/