Measuring Quality of Life After Pulmonary Embolism

Patients may experience a spectrum of complications and long-term sequelae following acute pulmonary embolism (PE), which can affect physical and psychosocial functioning as well as psychological well-being, causing a considerable impact on patients’ daily functioning and quality of life (QoL). Improved understanding of the impact of the acute PE event as experienced by patients can be achieved through the measurement of QoL. As a more holistic approach to capturing well-being, assessing QoL presents the opportunity to quantify and monitor the impact of the PE diagnosis on patients’ lives. Measurement of QoL could also help identifying the needs of individual patients and guide patient-tailored care. Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) are ideal tools to provide insight into the patient’s perception of the various aspects of health and well-being. In this chapter, we discuss why, how, and when to measure QoL after acute PE.