Quality of life after multiple trauma. Aim and scope of the conference

From September 29 until October 2, 1999, a group of international experts met in Wermelskirchen, Germany, for a consensus conference on "Quality of Life after Multiple Trauma". The meeting was initiated and sponsored by the German Ministry of Education and Research. It was the aim of the group to develop evidence-based guidelines for the systematic evaluation and application of Quality of Life (QoL) measures in patients with severe trauma. The present paper describes the format of the meeting, the selection of the participants, the time schedule, and the proceeding, in order to facilitate the interpretation of the results. The work was structured according to the different types of injury: traumatic brain injury (TBI), multiple injuries without TBI, spinal cord injury, and children with TBI. For each injury group, a specific task force group with 9-13 members was established, consisting of methodologists as well as clinicians from different disciplines. The conference was organised as an alternate sequence of plenary sessions and small working group meetings. The work itself was structured according to the following five questions which have been agreed on and distributed to the participants in advance: 1. What is the major problem (ranking) of the patient at different time points after the accident? 2. Which domains of QoL are affected in the sequelae of trauma? 3. Which instruments are useful to evaluate QoL in trauma patients? 4. Which studies have assessed QoL aspects with which instruments? 5. What instruments should be used in which patient group at what time? The moderators of each task force group summarised the respective results and tried to give recommendations for future application of QoL assessment in trauma patients. As far as possible, the statements should be based on the existing evidence. Furthermore, the groups should recommend QoL measures for use across different patient groups and time points.