Open AccessPatient expectations and health‐related quality of life
Author(s) -
Staniszewska Sophie
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
health expectations
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.314
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1369-7625
pISSN - 1369-6513
DOI - 10.1046/j.1369-6513.1999.00046.x
Subject(s) - construct (python library) , perspective (graphical) , consistency (knowledge bases) , context (archaeology) , quality of life (healthcare) , internal consistency , quality (philosophy) , measure (data warehouse) , medicine , applied psychology , medline , psychology , health related quality of life , construct validity , psychometrics , clinical psychology , nursing , computer science , data mining , paleontology , disease , epistemology , pathology , artificial intelligence , political science , law , biology , programming language , philosophy
Objective The measurement of health‐related quality of life (HRQL) has become increasingly common in health services research. Whilst useful, its focus on behaviour, capacities and activities means that it remains relatively specific. This paper explores the possibility of extending the evaluation of health by considering the concept of patients’ expectations. Design In‐depth and semi‐structured interviews were used to explore the concept of expectations from the patients’ perspective. Patients’ expectations were then used in the construction of a two‐part questionnaire. Settings and participants Expectations were explored with a group of 33 cardiac patients. The resulting questionnaire was given to 400 cardiac patients in a large teaching hospital in London. Results Patients identified a range of expectations which related to their health and seemed to represent the desired results of their hospital stay. Comparison of the content of patient expectations with a commonly used generic measure of HRQL, the Short‐Form 36 (SF‐36), found some overlap but indicated that patients seemed to adopt a broader approach to their health. Expectations that patients identified were used to construct two scales to measure expectations and their evaluation. The internal consistency of these scales was 0.82 and 0.88, respectively. Conclusion The study indicates the potential complexity of the concept of expectations and the need for further exploration. It also demonstrates the feasibility of constructing standardized scales to measure patient expectations. Whilst conceptually different from HRQL such standardized expectations scales could provide a useful adjunct to HRQL measurement and provide a meaningful context for the interpretation of HRQL data.