Improving Quality of Life (QOL) measurement for melanoma patients and their families

This is a questionnaire based study relying on participation at two levels. The first part of the study will involve conducting a set of focus group interviews with patients and their family members which will gather qualitative information about their experiences with melanoma diagnosis and treatment and how it has impacted on their quality of life (QOL). The focus group interviews would generally be 1-2 hour sessions and about 10 sessions in total would be held over a 3 month period (5 sessions for patients and 5 sessions for family members) depending on participant accrual. The second part of the study will involve participants completing a set of quality of life (QOL) questionnaires in addition to a composite set of new quality of life (QOL) items developed from the first part of the study. A set of 5 questionnaires would be distributed to each participant (patients and familiy members) and they would submit completed questionnaires on the day of the trial visit.