Quality of life

About: Quality of life is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 42912 publications have been published within this topic receiving 1198363 citations. The topic is also known as: life quality.

Religious coping is associated with the quality of life of patients with advanced cancer.

Abstract: Background: For patients confronting a life-threatening illness such as advanced cancer, religious coping can be an important factor influencing their quality of life (QOL). Objective: The study's main purpose was to examine the association between religious coping and QOL among 170 patients with advanced cancer. Both positive religious coping (e.g., benevolent religious appraisals) and negative religious coping (e.g., anger at God) and multiple dimensions of QOL (physical, physical symptom, psychological, existential, and support) were studied. Design: Structured interviews were conducted with 170 patients recruited as part of an ongoing multi-institutional longitudinal evaluation of the prevalence of mental illness and patterns of mental health service utilization in advanced cancer patients and their primary informal caregivers. Measurements: Patients completed measures of QOL (McGill QOL questionnaire), religious coping (Brief Measure of Religious Coping [RCOPE] and Multidimensional Measure of Religio...

Quality of life and psychological functioning of icd patients

Abstract: The use of the implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) for life threatening ventricular arrhythmias is standard therapy, in large part because clinical trials data have consistently demonstrated its superiority over medical treatment in preventing sudden cardiac death.1 This success prompts closer examination and refinement of quality of life (QOL) outcomes in ICD patients. Although no universal definition of QOL exists, most researchers agree that “quality of life” is a generic term for a multi-dimensional health outcome in which biological, psychological, and social functioning are interdependent.2 To date, the clinical trials demonstrating the efficacy of the ICD have focused primarily on mortality differences between the ICD and medical treatment. While the majority of the QOL data from these trials is yet to be published, many small studies are available for review and support the concept that ICD implantation results in desirable QOL for most ICD recipients.3 In some patients, however, these benefits may be attenuated by symptoms of anxiety and depression when a shock is necessary to accomplish cardioversion or defibrillation. This paper reviews the published literature on QOL and psychological functioning of ICD patients and outlines the clinical and research implications of these findings. Definitive conclusions about QOL differences between patients managed with an ICD and those treated with antiarrhythmic drugs are difficult to make in the absence of large, randomised, controlled trials. Available evidence indicates that ICD recipients experience a brief decline in QOL from baseline but improve to pre-implant levels after one year of follow up.4 The largest clinical trial data published in final form is from the coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) Patch trial which randomised patients to ICD (n = 262) versus no ICD (n = 228) while undergoing CABG surgery.5 In contrast to May and colleagues,4 data from this trial indicate …

Good Metabolic Control Is Associated With Better Quality of Life in 2,101 Adolescents With Type 1 Diabetes

Abstract: OBJECTIVE —It is unclear whether the demands of good metabolic control or the consequences of poor control have a greater influence on quality of life (QOL) for adolescents with diabetes. This study aimed to assess these relations in a large international cohort of adolescents with diabetes and their families. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS —The study involved 2,101 adolescents, aged 10–18 years, from 21 centers in 17 countries in Europe, Japan, and North America. Clinical and demographic data were collected from March through August 1998. HbA 1c was analyzed centrally (normal range 4.4–6.3%; mean 5.4%). Adolescent QOL was assessed by a previously developed Diabetes Quality of Life (DQOL) questionnaire for adolescents, measuring the impact of diabetes, worries about diabetes, satisfaction with life, and health perception. Parents and health professionals assessed family burden using newly constructed questionnaires. RESULTS —Mean HbA 1c was 8.7% (range 4.8–17.4). Lower HbA 1c was associated with lower impact ( P P P P P P P P P P CONCLUSIONS —In a multiple regression model, lower HbA 1c was significantly associated with better adolescent-rated QOL on all four subscales and with lower perceived family burden as assessed by parents and health professionals.

Construction and validation of a quality of life questionnaire in chronic lower limb venous insufficiency (CIVIQ)

Abstract: Quality of life may be considerably reduced in patients who are suffering from chronic lower limb venous insufficiency, although existing generic quality of life instruments (NHP, SF-36 or SIP) cannot completely identify their specific complaints. The Chronic Venous Insufficiency Questionnaire (CIVIQ) has been developed by iterative process. First, a pilot group of 20 patients was used to identify a number of important features of quality of life affected by venous insufficiency, other than physical symptoms of discomfort. A second study involving 2,001 subjects was used to reduce the number of items. Subjects were asked to score both the severity of their problems and the importance they attributed to each problem on a 5-point Likert scale. The importance items found in patients with venous insufficiency were subjected to factorial analyses (PCA, PAF). The final version is a 20-item self-administered questionnaire which explores four dimensions: psychological, physical and social functioning and pain. Internal consistency of the questionnaire was validated for each dimension (Cronbach's alpha > 0.820 for three out of four factors). Reproducibility was confirmed in a 60 patient test-retest study. Pearson's correlation coefficients for both the four dimension subscales and for the global score at 2-week intervals were greater than 0.940. Finally, the questionnaire was tested in a randomized clinical trial of 934 patients in order to assess responsiveness and the convergent validity of the instrument, together with the patient's own quality of life. This study demonstrated that convergence was valid: Pearson's correlation coefficients between clinical score differences and quality of life score differences were small (from 0.199–0.564) but were statistically different from 0 (p 0.80). Reliability, face, content, construct validity and responsiveness were also determined for this specific quality of life questionnaire relating to venous insufficiency. Results suggest that this questionnaire may be used with confidence to assess quality of life in clinical trials on chronic venous insufficiency.

Quality of life in asthma. I. Internal consistency and validity of the SF-36 questionnaire.

Abstract: Asthma is a chronic disease in which social life is altered. The importance of restrictions on social life may be greater in severe asthma or when symptoms are not adequately controlled. General scales of quality-of-life (QOL) may be used to detect the importance of social life impairment, but it is not yet known whether the scores of such QOL measures are reliable and valid in asthmatic patients. A study was carried out in 252 patients with asthma of variable severity (FEV1 ranging from 25 to 131% of predicted) to assess the validity of a general QOL scale, the first French version of the SF-36 health status questionnaire (SF-36). This is based on 36 items selected to represent nine health concepts (physical, social, and role functioning; mental health; health perceptions; energy or fatigue; pain; and general health). All nine SF-36 category scores were highly significantly correlated with the severity of asthma assessed by the clinical score of Aas (p < 0.0007 to p < 0.0001). Eight SF-36 category scores were highly significantly correlated with FEV1 (p < 0.003 to p < 0.0001). A high internal reliability of SF-36 was found using the alpha coefficient of Cronbach (0.91 for the whole questionnaire). The SF-36 questionnaire is valid and reliable in asthma and can therefore be used to examine QOL in asthmatic and nonasthmatic patients and to determine to what extent asthma impairs social life.