title: Assessing the quality of life of the individual: the SEIQoL with a healthy and a gastroenterology unit population.
abstract: Current methods of measuring quality of life (QoL) impose an external value system on individuals, rather than allowing them to describe their lives in terms of those factors which they consider important. The Schedule for the Evaluation of Individual Quality of Life (SEIQoL) was developed to overcome such limitations. The QoL of 42 healthy attenders at an international immunization clinic was assessed using SEIQoL. Judgement reliability was high (r = 0.74) and individuals' judgement policies accounted for a large percentage of the variance in overall QoL (R2 = 0.75) demonstrating the construct validity of judgement analysis in this context. In a second study of QoL of out-patient suffering from irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) (N = 20) or peptic ulcer disease (PUD) (N = 20) was assessed using SEIQoL. Judgement reliability was lower (r = 0.54) although statistically highly significant (P less than 0.01), and the variance in overall QoL judgements explained was high (R2 = 0.74). SEIQoL is an acceptable, reliable and valid technique for measuring individual QoL that takes greater account of individual perspectives than traditional measurement approaches.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin.
authors.forename: H M
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: McGee
authors.forename: C A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: O'Boyle
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hickey
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: O'Malley
authors.forename: C R
authors.initials: CR
authors.lastname: Joyce
mesh_terms: D000203:Activities of Daily Living / Q000523:psychology*; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D003109:Colonic Diseases, Functional / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007899:Leisure Activities; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010437:Peptic Ulcer / Q000523:psychology*; D010552:Personality Assessment / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011594:Psychometrics; D011788:Quality of Life; D012803:Sick Role; D012917:Social Adjustment