Quality of life change and response shift in patients admitted to palliative care units: a pilot study.

This pilot study was carried out to determine to what extent patients admitted to palliative care units (PCUs) in The Netherlands maintained good levels of individual quality of life (QoL), and to what extent response shift - a measure of adaptation - influenced QoL at the end of life. Two components of response shift were measured: reconceptualization (exchanging important areas of life) and value change (changing the perceived importance of important areas of life). Twenty patients admitted to PCUs were interviewed at one week, three weeks, and five weeks after admission. Results show that individual QoL was high and remained stable over the three measurement points. The individual QoL of patients who did not reconceptualize or did not change values was higher than the individual QoL of patients who did. The current pilot data need to be corroborated with data from additional respondents.