The Flanagan Quality Of Life Scale: evidence of construct validity.
BACKGROUND
The Quality of Life Scale (QOLS), developed originally by John Flanagan in the 1970's, has been adapted for use in chronic illness groups. Evidence for reliability and validity has been published over the years for both English and translations. This paper presents further evidence of construct validity for persons with chronic conditions as well as across two languages, and gender.


METHODS
A sample of 1241 chronically ill and healthy adults from American and Swedish databases was used to generate factor analyses for both the 15-item original QOLS and the 16-item chronic illness adaptation.


RESULTS
Analysis of the data suggested that the QOLS has three factors in the healthy sample and across chronic conditions, two languages and gender. Factors that could be labeled (1) Relationships and Material Well-Being, (2) Health and Functioning, and (3) Personal, Social and Community Commitment were identified.


CONCLUSIONS
The QOLS is a valid instrument for measuring domains of quality of life across diverse patient groups.
Burckhardt
Carol S
CS
School of Nursing Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, Oregon, USA. burckhac@ohsu.edu
Anderson
Kathryn L
KL
Archenholtz
Brigitha
B
Hägg
Olle
O
D000328:Adult; D002908:Chronic Disease; D016208:Databases, Factual; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D011788:Quality of Life; D012737:Sex Factors; D018434:Sickness Impact Profile; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013548:Sweden; D014481:United States