they have also been criticized for being too focused and for potentially missing out aspects
of quality of life that may be of specific importance to the individual concerned. In
particular, it has been suggested that by asking individuals to answer a pre-defined set of
questions and to rate statements that have been developed by researchers, the indi-
vidual’s own concerns may be missed. This has led to the development of individual
quality of life measures.Individual quality of life measures
Measures of subjective health status ask the individual to rate their own health. This is
in great contrast to measures of mortality, morbidity and most measures of functioning,
which are completed by carers, researchers or an observer. However, although such
measures enable individuals to rate their own health, they do not allow them to select
the dimensions along which to rate it. For example, a measure that asks about an
individual’s work life assumes that work is important to this person, but they might not
want to work. Furthermore, one that asks about family life, might be addressing the
question to someone who is glad not to see their family. How can one set of individuals
who happen to be researchers know what is important to the quality of life of another
set of individuals? In line with this perspective, researchers have developed individual
quality of life measures, which not only ask the subjects to rate their own health status
but also to define the dimensions along which it should be rated. One such measure, the
schedule for evaluating individual quality of life (SEIQoL) (McGee et al. 1991; O’Boyle
et al. 1992) asks subjects to select five areas of their lives that are important to them, to
weight them in terms of their importance and then to rate how satisfied they currently
are with each dimension (see Focus on research 16.1 below).FOCUS ON RESEARCH 16.1: PUTTING THEORY INTO
PRACTICE – EVALUATING HIP REPLACEMENT SURGERYIndividual quality of life in patients undergoing hip replacement (O’Boyle et al.
1992).This is an interesting paper as it illustrates how a measurement tool, developed within a
psychological framework, can be used to evaluate the impact of a surgical intervention.
In addition, it compared the use of composite scales with an individual quality of life
scale.Background
There are a multitude of measures of quality of life available, most of which ask patients
to rate a set of statements that a group of researchers consider to reflect quality of life.
However, whether this approach actually accesses what the patient thinks is unclear.
Therefore, O’Boyle et al. (1992) devised their own measure of quality of life and this asks
the patients themselves to decide what is important to them. It is called the schedule for388 HEALTH PSYCHOLOGY