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Table 3 Global Quality of Life measurements

From: Associations between psychological factors and health-related quality of life and global quality of life in patients with ALS: a systematic review

Global QoL Measurement and reference

Number

of items

Description

References in this review

The Schedule for the Evaluation of Quality of Life (SEIQoL)

McGee (1991) [79]

O’Boyle (1992) [80]

46

SEIQoL assesses overall subjective QoL as judged by the patient in healthy or ill individuals. It is derived from a decision analysis technique known as judgement analysis, administered through a semi-structured interview. Patients rate their satisfaction with areas of their life by assessing three aspects of QoL. The patients have to 1) nominate the life areas (cues) which are important to their QoL; 2) rate their current level of functioning in each of these salient areas; and 3) rate the relative importance of each of their chosen cues.

SEIQoL index score: the SEIQoL scores are entirely person-specific, for the purpose of group analyses an overall global or index QoL score (also referred to as a total QoL score) is calculated. The resulting SEIQoL index ranges from 0 (worst possible QoL) to 100 (best possible QoL).

[15, 42]

The Schedule for the evaluation of Quality of Life-Direct Weighting (SEIQoL-DW)

Hickey (1996) [81]

15

SEIQoL-DW is a shorter, direct-weight (DW) version of the SEIQoL, employs an alternative method of deriving cue weights using a colored disk.

SEIQoL-DW index score: The SEIQoL-DW scores are entirely person-specific; for the purpose of group analyses an overall global or index QoL score (also referred to as a total QoL score) is calculated. The resulting SEIQoL index ranges from 0 (worst possible QoL) to 100 (best possible QoL).

[13, 28, 30, 38]

The McGill Quality of Life Questionnaire (MQOL)

Cohen SR (1995/1996) [82, 83]

17

MQOL assesses overall subjective QoL as judged by the patient. Subjects evaluate their lives over the past 2 days on five subscales using a 10-point semantic-differential format. Originally designed for cancer and HIV patients. It is not heavily weighted toward physical function and it includes an existential element.

MQOL includes five domains, two of which are health-related: Physical Symptoms (MQOL-Ph) (3 items) and Physical Well-being (MQOL-PW) (1 item); and three are non-health related: Psychological symptoms (MQOL-Ps) (4 item); Existential Well-being (MQOL-EW) (6 items) and Social Support (MQOL-Su) (2 items). Scores on the subscales range from 0 (worst) to 10 (best). The MQOL total score is the mean of the 5 subscales, score ranges from 0 (worst QoL) to 10 (best QoL).

MQOL-SIS: besides the subscales there is also a Single-Item Score (SIS): the patient is asked to indicate his/her self-perceived overall QoL in the past two days in a single-item scale (SIS) measuring overall subjective QoL, rated from 0 (very bad) to 10 (excellent).

[13, 14, 16, 27, 29, 41]

QoL-single-item question

Self-developed by Ganzini (1999) [45]

1

A single-item question to assess patients self-perceived overall QoL.

End-points labelled 1 = “my quality of life is as good as it can be” and 6 = “my quality of life is very bad, horrible”.

[45]

QoL-single-item question

Self-developed by Krampe (2008) [27]

1

A single-item question to assess patients self-perceived overall QoL.

“Over the past seven days, the quality of my life has been”: very poor (0) – excellent (10).

[27]