title: The Multicultural Quality of Life Index: presentation and validation.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Quality of life has emerged as a crucial concept for the assessment of health and the planning of health care. Desirable features for the evaluation of quality of life include comprehensiveness, self-ratedness, cultural sensitivity, practicality and psychometric soundness. An attempt to meet these challenges led to the development of a brief multicultural quality of life instrument and to the appraisal of its applicability, reliability and validity.
  
  
  METHODS
  The development of the proposed assessment instrument was based on a wide review of the literature and the engagement of a multicultural mental health scholarly team. Its validation was conducted on samples of psychiatric patients (n = 124) and hospital professionals (n = 53) in New York City.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A new generic culture-informed and self-rate instrument, the Multicultural Quality of Life Index, has been developed. Its 10 items cover key aspects of the concept, from physical well-being to spiritual fulfilment. Concerning its applicability, mean time for completion was less than 3 minutes and 96% of raters found it easy to use. Test-retest reliability was high (r = 0.87). A Cronbach's α of 0.92 documented its internal consistency and a factor analysis revealed a strong structure. With regard to discriminant validity, a highly significant difference was found between the mean total scores of professionals (x = 8.41) and patients (x = 6.34) presumed to have different levels of quality of life.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The Multicultural Quality of Life Index is a brief and culturally informed instrument that appears to be easy to complete, reliable, internally consistent and valid.
authors.affiliation: International Network for Person-centered Medicine, President 2005-2008, World Psychiatric Association and Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York University, New York, USA. juanmezzich@aol.com
authors.forename: Juan E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Mezzich
authors.forename: Neal L
authors.initials: NL
authors.lastname: Cohen
authors.forename: Maria A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Ruiperez
authors.forename: Claudio E M
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Banzato
authors.forename: Maria I
authors.initials: MI
authors.lastname: Zapata-Vega
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D054521:Cultural Competency; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008603:Mental Health; D008875:Middle Aged; D009519:New York City; D011788:Quality of Life; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*