title: The assessment of quality of life in clinical practice in patients with schizophrenia.
abstract: The aim of the present article is to review QoL scales used in studies investigating patients with schizophrenia over the past 5 years, and to summarize the results of QoL assessment in clinical practice in these patients. Literature available from January 2009 to December 2013 was identified in a PubMed search using the key words "quality of life" and "schizophrenia" and in a cross-reference search for articles that were particularly relevant. A total of n=432 studies used 35 different standardized generic and specific QoL scales in patients with schizophrenia. Affective symptoms were major obstacles for QoL improvement in patients with schizophrenia. Though positive symptoms, negative symptoms, and cognitive functioning may be seen as largely independent parameters from subjective QoL, especially in cross-sectional trials, long-term studies confirmed a critical impact of early QoL improvement on long-term symptomatic and functional remission, as well as of early symptomatic response on long-term QoL. Results of the present review suggest that QoL is a valid and useful outcome criterion in patients with schizophrenia. As such, it should be consistently applied in clinical trials. Understanding the relationship between symptoms and functioning with QoL is important because interventions that focus on symptoms of psychosis or functioning alone may fail to improve subjective QoL to the same level. However, the lack of consensus on QoL scales hampers research on its predictive validity. Future research needs to find a consensus on the concept and measures of QoL and to test whether QoL predicts better outcomes with respect to remission and recovery under consideration of different treatment approaches in patients with schizophrenia.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Centre for Psychosocial Medicine, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Karow
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Centre for Psychosocial Medicine, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Linus
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wittmann
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Centre for Psychosocial Medicine, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Schöttle
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Centre for Psychosocial Medicine, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Ingo
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Schäfer
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Centre for Psychosocial Medicine, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lambert
mesh_terms: D014150:Antipsychotic Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D039781:PubMed / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011788:Quality of Life / Q000523:psychology*; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000150:complications / Q000235:genetics / Q000628:therapy*; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology
chemical_list: D014150:Antipsychotic Agents
keywords: antipsychotic; assertive community treatment; integrative care; quality of life; remission; schizophrenia; symptom