There is an increased interest in the analysis of large, national palliative care data sets including patient reported outcomes (PROs). No study has investigated if it was best to include or exclude data from services with low response rates in order to obtain the patient reported outcomes most representative of the national palliative care population. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate whether services with low response rates should be excluded from analyses to prevent effects of possible selection bias. Data from the Danish Palliative Care Database from 24,589 specialized palliative care admittances of cancer patients was included. Patients reported ten aspects of quality of life using the EORTC QLQ-C15-PAL-questionnaire. Multiple linear regression was performed to test if response rate was associated with the ten aspects of quality of life. The score of six quality of life aspects were significantly associated with response rate. However, in only two cases patients from specialized palliative care services with lower response rates (< 20.0%, 20.0–29.9%, 30.0–39.9%, 40.0–49.9% or 50.0–59.9) were feeling better than patients from services with high response rates (≥60%) and in both cases it was less than 2 points on a 0–100 scale. The study hypothesis, that patients from specialized palliative care services with lower response rates were reporting better quality of life than those from specialized palliative care services with high response rates, was not supported. This suggests that there is no reason to exclude data from specialized palliative care services with low response rates.

中文翻译：

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是否应将大型，全国性姑息治疗数据集（包括患者报告的结局（PRO））的分析仅限于患者参与度较高的服务？基于注册的研究。

人们对大型的全国姑息治疗数据集（包括患者报告的结局（PRO））的分析越来越感兴趣。没有研究调查是否最好从反应率低的服务中纳入或排除数据，以获得最能代表全国姑息治疗人群的患者报告的结局。因此，本研究的目的是调查是否应将分析率低的服务排除在分析之外，以防止可能出现的选择偏差。包括来自丹麦姑息治疗数据库的24589例癌症患者特殊姑息治疗准入率的数据。患者使用EORTC QLQ-C15-PAL问卷调查了生活质量的十个方面。进行多元线性回归以检验反应率是否与生活质量的十个方面相关。生活质量六个方面的得分与反应率显着相关。但是，只有两个案例中来自缓解率较低（<20.0％，20.0–29.9％，30.0–39.9％，40.0–49.9％或50.0–59.9）的专门姑息治疗服务的患者感觉好于接受高响应服务的患者率（≥60％），在两种情况下，其得分都在0-100范围内小于2分。这项研究假说认为，来自那些具有较低缓解率的专门姑息治疗服务的患者的生活质量要比那些来自那些具有较高缓解率的专门姑息治疗服务的患者的生活质量更好。