title: Short forms of subjective quality of life assessments from cross-cultural studies for use in surveys with different populations.
abstract: Among several advances in quality of life (QOL) assessment development, such as cross-cultural comparability of measurements, inclusion of more specific target populations, and assessment on different levels of QOL generality, economy of measurement has become of increasing importance. As a consequence, construction of short forms and indices of original measures is common in QOL assessment development. The present paper puts special emphasis upon the issue of shortening measures and developing short forms in QOL assessment in relation to this development. Some basic principles and procedures of short-form development in general are outlined, and selected prominent examples of short-form development as applied to QOL assessment are described.
authors.affiliation: University Clinic of Hamburg-Eppendorf, Centre for Psychosocial Medicine, Department for Medical Psychology, Hamburg, Germany. h.muehlan@email.de
authors.forename: Holger
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Mühlan
authors.forename: Monika
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bullinger
authors.forename: Mick
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Power
authors.forename: Silke
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Schmidt
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D006305:Health Status Indicators; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008603:Mental Health / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires