The relation between clinical scores and quality-of-life in long-term follow-up

Introduction Quality-of-life and severity scores are both popular measures in medicine. For deep venous obstruction, the VEINES-QOL/Sym and venous clinical severity score (VCSS) are widely used. Combining a patient-reported outcome with a clinical severity score should give a more sensitive outcome for treatment results. To establish and compare their suitability for deep venous disease, we compared the outcomes of both scores in a group of patients who were interventionally treated for deep venous disease. Methods The venous clinical severity scores and VEINES-QOL/Sym scores of a group of patients who had received interventional treatment for deep venous obstruction more than 12 months ago were compared at T0 and T12. Results Both the Spearman’s rho and Pearson’s r show a very weak, negative correlation (statistically significant ( p ≤ 0.05)), between the venous clinical severity score and VEINES-QOL at T12 and between the venous clinical severity score and the VEINES-SYM at both T0 and T12. T0 VCSS-VSYM: rho = −0.219 ( p = 0.052), r = −0.236 ( p = 0.037), T12 VCSS-VQOL: rho = −0.459 ( p = 0.007), r = −0.379 ( p = 0.030), T12 VCSS-VSYM: rho = −0.463 ( p = 0.007), r = −0.432 ( p = 0.012). This negative correlation was not statistically ( p ≥ 0.05) confirmed for T0 VCSS-VSYM. Conclusion The physician-scored venous clinical severity score of patients treated for deep venous obstruction does not correlate well with their self-reported quality-of-life and symptom scores.