ePrognosis - Palliative Performance Scale

Palliative Performance Scale

Population: Patients who have received a palliative care consultation at an academic medical center. If your patient is in hospice, use the hospice version of the PPS by clicking here.
Outcome: 1-month mortality, 6-month mortality, median survival in months.
Scroll to the bottom for more detailed information.

Palliative Performance Scale Score

1. Is your patient in the inpatient (hospital) or outpatient (home or clinic) setting?

2. Does your patient have cancer or a non-cancer serious illness, primarily?

3. If you know your patient’s PPS score, input it here and you will then skip ahead to the next page.

If you don't know your patient's PPS score, complete the following 5 questions to determine their score:

4. How ambulatory is this patient?

5. What is the patient's daily level of activity? Is there any evidence of disease?

6. How much self-care assistance does this patient require?

7. How much oral intake does this patient have?

8. What is this patient's level of consciousness?

The Palliative Performance Scale (PPS) has been shown to be valid and useful for a broad range of palliative care patients: Those with advanced cancer and life-threatening non-cancer diagnoses in inpatient and outpatient palliative care settings.¹
Prognostic estimates shown are from an external validation study done in 4779 patients who received a palliative care consult at the University of California, San Francisco between 1/1/2018 and 12/31/2020.
Average age was 63 years, 51% women, 57% white.
Among inpatients, 62.3% had cancer, 5.1% had neurologic illnesses, and 32.6% had other serious illnesses. Among outpatients, 73.9% had cancer, 11.9% had neurologic illnesses, and 14.2% had other serious illnesses.
This risk calculator has good ability to sort patients who lived from patients who died at 1-month and moderate ability to sort patients who lived from patients who died at 6-months and longer follow-up.
Discrimination for mortality at 1 month:
Citations:
1. Anderson F, Downing GM, Hill J, Casorso L, Lerch N. Palliative Performance scale (PPS): a new tool. J Pall Care, 12(1): 5-11
2. Bischoff KE, Patel K, Boscardin WJ, O’Riordan DL, Pantilat SZ, Smith AK. Prognoses Associated With Palliative Performance Scale Scores in Modern Palliative Care Practice. JAMA Netw Open. 2024;7(7):e2420472. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.20472

DISCLAIMER

The information provided on ePrognosis is designed to complement, not replace, the relationship between a patient and his/her own medical providers. ePrognosis was created with the support of the Division of Geriatrics at the University of California San Francisco. However, its content is strictly the work of its authors and has no affiliation with any organization or institution. This web site does not accept advertisements. If you reproduce the material on the website please cite appropriately. For feedback and questions regarding the site please email Sei Lee, MD (sei.lee@ucsf.edu), Alex Smith, MD (aksmith@ucsf.edu) or Eric Widera, MD (eric.widera@ucsf.edu).