92
Views
27
CrossRef citations to date
0
Altmetric
Research Article

Subjective quality of life: it's association with other constructs

&
Pages 219-224 | Published online: 11 Jul 2009
 

Abstract

The focus on assessing users' views as a way to evaluate healthcare interventions has increased the importance of quality of life as an outcome measure in psychiatric care. However, despite its wide use, little consensus seems to exist in the literature on the concept of quality of life and on its measurements. Although there is an agreement that it encompasses both objective and subjective indicators--the former referring to external living conditions and the latter describing one's appraisal of these conditions, the available literature shows that the two indicators are only weakly to moderately correlated. Inter-correlation between subjective constructs such as subjective quality of life, self-rated needs and self-rated symptoms has also been reported, suggesting the existence of a general subjective appraisal factor influencing all ratings of all those constructs. The factor summarizes a higher subjective quality of life and fewer needs and symptoms, and is affected by psychopathology, in particular mood symptoms. A challenge for future research is to identify how the general appraisal factor can be distinguished from the specific variance of subjective quality of life ratings that is independent of that factor. There seems to be a need for more research into the association of quality of life with other constructs and into the factors that mediate the associations described in the literature. This is likely to require more conceptual work and systematic studies using qualitative and quantitative methods.

Reprints and Corporate Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

To request a reprint or corporate permissions for this article, please click on the relevant link below:

Academic Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

Obtain permissions instantly via Rightslink by clicking on the button below:

If you are unable to obtain permissions via Rightslink, please complete and submit this Permissions form. For more information, please visit our Permissions help page.