KPS is a widely used measure demonstrated to have important correlations with both resource utilization and prognosis at the end of life. Generating a measure of function with language that is consistent with current clinical practice is crucial for the ongoing use of KPS. For the measure to transcend differences in funding of healthcare and models of service delivery, it is timely to remove specific references to the place or intensity of care and focus on function alone.
The Thorne modification developed in the 1990's was an important validated update, making the scale useful for contemporary palliative home care settings, especially hospice. The TKPS concentrated on the community setting, though, limiting the scale's utility in the varied clinical settings encountered in palliative care including inpatient hospice, acute inpatient care, and nursing home care. This is the first research report of the Australia-modified version (AKPS), an important amalgam of the original KPS and the TKPS applicable to both inpatient and community palliative care. The categories in the AKPS are less directive of the expected location of care; however, as much of the original KPS and TKPS language as possible has been maintained in order to reduce confusion and the need for extensive retraining for clinicians already familiar with the earlier versions.
In this study all versions of the KPS could be used in the various venues of palliative care including the community, acute inpatient, subacute inpatient, inpatient hospice, respite, nursing home, and hostel settings. AKPS had the highest agreement with both KPS and TKS (Table 4, Figures 2 and 3), and was equally predictive of survival (Figure 4). When considering the lower end of the scale (category C) where more palliative patients cluster, AKPS was most predictive of survival (Figure 5). All scales were able to reflect longitudinal change. The nurses reflected that AKPS was easiest to use and most acceptable. This study demonstrated that AKPS had excellent correlation with the original KPS while allowing for palliative care sensitive clinician responses to changes in level of function as death approaches, both in terms of place of care and the clinical staff who need to be involved in that care. The better performance of the AKPS will assist with better decision-making in palliative care.
The high level of agreement among the three versions was expected, given the similarity of the three scales. However, before a new scale is adopted for day-to-day clinical practice it is important that it is carefully and prospectively evaluated to ensure that the results reflect what the user expects to be measuring. Further, as we planned to use performance status as a primary outcome in a major clinical trial in palliative care it was vital to verify the validity of the AKPS as an outcome measure within the palliative care setting before limiting all of our data collection to this single measure. The need for formal validation is evident in Table 4 and Figure 2. Some participants were assessed as a KPS of 20 and an AKPS of 50 even when the KPS 50 and AKPS 50 had exactly the same phrasing. This was done by the same nurse assessing the patient using each of the scales sequentially at the same evaluation visit. This difference in scoring was reflective of the difference in phrasing at other levels on the scales. For an individual palliative care patient, a score of KPS 20 ("very sick; hospitalization necessary; active supportive treatment necessary") may be the best option on that scale, however when reviewing the AKPS scale the score of 50 ("requires considerable assistance and frequent medical care") was more appropriate in relation to all other levels on the scale. Importantly, the AKPS instrument with more palliative care appropriate language did not alter the scale's expected overall correlation with survival, was more correlated with survival at lower performance status, and was more acceptable to the clinical nurses.
Longitudinal assessment
Any of the KPS tools provide both an objective measure of the current status of the person being assessed and useful trends when used longitudinally. Longitudinal trends in performance status is an important aspect of prognostication for the longer term outlook of the patient including his or her anticipated health resource and service needs over time, as demonstrated by the relationship between performance status and phase of palliative care [20]. Such changes in level of function reflect the disease trajectories described by Lunney, Lynn and colleagues [21], irrespective of the underlying life-limiting illness.
Other measures of performance
KPS is not the only measure of performance status used in palliative care and oncology. The shorter Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance status scale was derived from the KPS [22]. It is only occasionally used as a main outcome in clinical trials in the palliative care setting since the 5-item scale inadequately differentiates between patients with poor functional status. Similar concerns about the KPS having limited sensitivity to monitor change when patients score at the low end of the scale have been reported by other authors [2]. In this current study, AKPS was superior to KPS and TKPS in the lower range of the scale and provided more categorical levels of performance status than the ECOG scale.
In 1996, Anderson et al described the Palliative Performance Scale (PPS), a modification of the KPS based on 5 observable parameters (ambulation, activity combined with evidence of disease, self-care, intake and conscious level) scored into 11 categories. [23]. PPS predicted time to death (mean 162 days) for a population of Australian patients admitted to a palliative care unit[24]. PPS was not as predictive of survival for a similar group of Japanese palliative care patients with a mean survival of 49 days [11]. AKPS is a less complex measure which is easier to use with each clinical encounter.
Other scales such as the Edmonton Functional Assessment Tool extend on the functional parameters described in the KPS, PPS and TKPS [2], however as these scales and their scoring becomes more complicated, their day-to-day applicability decreases. AKPS focuses on current functional abilities and on changes in function if used longitudinally; it provides an important parameter in the overall assessment of any person with a life-limiting illness.
Limitations
This study is representative by age and gender for palliative care in Australia. Because it was a sub-study of a larger randomized controlled trial where pain in the previous 3 months was an inclusion criterion, the population almost all had cancer as their life-limiting illness (92%) versus 85% seen in the general population referred to the palliative care service. Given that KPS was originally developed for people with cancer and had been extrapolated to other clinical settings (AIDS, end-stage organ failure), this should not be a major limit to generalizing these findings. In the early parts of the trial, measurement of KPS, TKPS and AKPS was predominantly in the community setting limiting the ability to observe its utility in other care venues. As more trial participants were hospitalized over time, data were collected from the inpatient settings therefore reflecting the range of settings in which palliative care is delivered. Many assessments were in the upper range of the scales; only a minority of patients were bedridden. An evaluation on a palliative care unit with more severely disabled patients might show other results. The missing correlation of KPS and TKPS with survival in the lower range of the scale may have been biased by small patient numbers in these clusters. Also, ideally none of the performance status measures would have any reference to the amount of health services required at any of the levels. AKPS has considerably less reference, but still states "requires... frequent medical care" in its description of AKPS 50.
Inter-rater reliability evaluation of the AKPS was originally planned as part of this sub-study. Ill palliative care patients were overly burdened by multiple visits on the same day for research data collection. An alternative plan was enacted with collection of measures after the informed consent document was signed and then comparing these results with those reported on the baseline assessment within 48 hours of the consent visit. Unfortunately many patients were too unstable or the timing of the baseline assessment was too far from the consent visit; there were not enough data available for these analyses. The inter-rater reliability and other psychometric properties of the KPS has previously been documented[3, 6, 7]. As AKPS was more predictive of survival outcomes than KPS, the reliability was expected to be better if it differed from that reported for the KPS.
In addition to being more predictive of survival at the lower end of the scale, the AKPS may be more appropriate than the other performance status scales in settings outside of cancer. Ninety-two percent of participants in this study had cancer, so evaluation of the AKPS in non-cancer diagnoses was limited. Further work should concentrate on disabled palliative care patients whose performance status is at the lower end of the scale. Future studies will focus on validity outside of the cancer setting and with more diverse palliative care populations. Also, the performance of the AKPS will be compared to other performance status measurement tools appropriate for palliative care such as the ECOG scale, PPS and Edmonton Functional Assessment Tool.