Journal of Zhejiang University SCIENCE
(ISSN 1009-3095, Monthly)
2005 Vol. 6B No. 9 p.936-940
A systematic review: How to choose appropriate health-related quality of life (HRQOL) measures in routine general practice?
CHEN Tian-hui1,2, LI Lu†‡1
(1Institute of Social and Family Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310006, China)
(2Department of General Practice, Goettingen University, Goettingen 37073, Germany)
†E-mail: lilu@zju.edu.cn
Received Apr. 21, 2005; revision accepted May 19, 2005
Abstract: In more recent times, health-related quality of life (HRQOL) measurements have formed an important part of assessing the quality of routine care in general practice. For a measure to have clinical usefulness it must not only be valid, appropriate, reliable, responsive, and capable of being interpreted, but it must also be simple, fast to complete, easy to score, and provide useful clinical data. The Two-step method of choosing appropriate measures is introduced. Then through comparison of generic instruments with disease-specific instruments, we can conclude that sometimes a combination of generic and disease-specific HRQOL measures may be more appropriate for monitoring changes in a patient’s health status due to an intervention.
Key words: Health-related quality of life (HRQOL), Generic, Disease-specific, Measure, General practice
doi:10.1631/jzus.2005.B0936 CLC number: R19