Subjective quality of life: its relationship with clinician-rated and patient-rated psychopathology. The South-Verona Outcome Project 6.
BACKGROUND
The study compared clinician-rated and patient-rated psychopathology and analysed their relationship with subjective quality of life (QoL) in a sample of patients with a wide range of psychiatric conditions attending a community-based mental health service.


METHODS
In the context of the South-Verona Outcome Project (SVOP), 139 patients were assessed for both clinician-rated and self-rated psychopathology (by using respectively the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale and the revised version of the Symptom Checklist 90), and asked to report on their subjective quality of life (by using the Lancashire Quality of Life Profile). In order to explore the associations between psychopathology and subjective QoL bivariate and multivariate analyses were performed.


RESULTS
BPRS and SCL-90-R were poorly correlated, both in their total scores and in their various dimension scores. BPRS showed only a modest negative correlation with LQL, which, in contrast, was highly negatively correlated with SCL-90-R. Regression analyses showed that patient-rated psychopathology was the strongest predictor of subjective quality of life, with self-rated depressive symptoms and self-reported paranoid ideation having the highest predictive power.


CONCLUSIONS
Self-reported psychological distress is more important than clinician-rated symptom severity in predicting subjective QoL. In order to improve QoL, psychiatric treatment should focus not only on simple reduction of symptoms but also on patients' subjective psychological distress.
Department of Medicine and Public Health, Section of Psychiatry, University of Verona, Verona, Italy. antonio.lasalvia@univr.it
Antonio
A
Lasalvia
Mirella
M
Ruggeri
Nazario
N
Santolini
D000328:Adult; D002908:Chronic Disease; D003156:Community Mental Health Services; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D008875:Middle Aged; D015588:Observer Variation; D010359:Patient Readmission / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010552:Personality Assessment / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010555:Personality Inventory / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011594:Psychometrics; D011788:Quality of Life / Q000523:psychology*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012803:Sick Role