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RESEARCH LETTER: What are quality of life improvements measuring and do they last? An explanatory model
Author(s) -
Long Michael J.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
journal of evaluation in clinical practice
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.737
H-Index - 73
eISSN - 1365-2753
pISSN - 1356-1294
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-2753.1999.00199.x
Subject(s) - quality of life (healthcare) , psychological intervention , intervention (counseling) , quality (philosophy) , outcome (game theory) , psychology , applied psychology , psychiatry , psychotherapist , economics , philosophy , mathematical economics , epistemology
To the Editor: The growing propensity to use the many validated instruments that measure improvements in physical, psychological and social wellbeing following clinical intervention raises two important questions. Are clinical interventions more likely to impact physical functions than psychological and social functions? Since it has been argued (Brook 1973, Donabedian 1980; Bergner 1989; Kaplan et al. 1989) that quality of life instruments should quantify benefits from clinical intervention that are additional to traditionally measured clinical benefits, are quality of life benefits additive to traditional clinical benefits? An important corollary is that if quality of life assessment does not add to the information derived from typical clinical evaluation, is it worth the additional cost? An explanatory model of the relationship between clinical outcome measures and quality of life outcome measures that result from clinical (medical) intervention is presented.