A Us Experience: Consumer Responsive Quality of Life Measurement

Objective: In the United States, interest in quality of life and social disabilities associated with mental illne intensified in the wake of the deinstitutionalization of the late '60s abd '70s. Although mental health professionals in the United States have begun to recognize the importance of quality of life considerations to patient management and treatment outcomes, review of the literature shows there is minimal research in mental health on this important topic. As a result, little theoretical or methodological progres has been made. Quality of life has not been clearly conceptulized or defined and there are no agreed-upon standards or criteria for measurement. This presentation will; (a) review important conceptual issues in quality of life research, (b) discuss the benefits of and obstacles to incorporating consumer values in judgments of quality of life, and (c) present data from Wisconsin Quality of Life Index (W-QLI; Becker et al., 1993) to illustrate the usefulness of a consumer responsive model of quality of life and the importance of incorporating consumer values in the assessment of quality of life of persons with schizophrenia. Methods: The W-QLI was administered to a convenience sample of psychiatric outpatients with a DSM-IV diagnosis of schizophrenia. The W-QLI is a self-administered individually preference-weighted index that measures nine separted domains encompassing quality of life. The W-QLI scoring method results in spearted scores for each domain and allows for the relationships among separate domains to be studied. The mine separted domains include; (a) satisfaction level for different objective quality of life indicators, (b) occupational activities, (c) psychological well-being,(d) physical health, (c) social relations, (f) economics, (g) activities of daily living, (h) symptoms, and (i) goal attainment. Results: study findings are consistent with previous theory and empirical domains. Results show that while consumers' and clinicians' judgments of outcome corelated, there were important differences. Clincians systematically rated functiion higher and social relations lower that did consumers, and there were significant differences in consumer and provider goals for improvement with treatment. Overall ratings of quality of life and funciton are only weakly correlated with psychopathology. The findings support the importance and feasibility of incorporating consumer values and judgments of quality of life in outcome measurement.