OPERATIONAL ASPECTS OF QUALITY-OF-LIFE ASSESSMENT - CHOOSING THE RIGHT INSTRUMENT

In assessing quality of life, the most important goal is to develop a strategy that produces useable and useful information for decision mak ing. Assessment design is complex, and whether an assessment is develo ped from scratch, or 1 or more portions of existing instruments are ad apted, the focus must be on the quality of the theoretical and operati onal elements of the particular line of inquiry and its environment. T he necessary and most often discussed focus on the theoretical dimensi ons of validity, reliability and responsiveness is not sufficient to i nsure that the data are of the requisite high quality. There is also a need, almost universally given little attention in the literature, to look at operational aspects, such as design, format, flow, appearance , and response-stimulus, of each assessment instrument. Searching for guidance in the quality-of-life (QOL) literature remains a challenge e ven with computers, modems, keywords, static guidebooks and bibliograp hic systems. The On-Line Guide to Quality-of-Life Assessments (OLGA) i s presented as a personal computer-based system that is updated 3 time s a year to provide QOL researchers and assessment developers with 2 d atabases: assessments providing full descriptions and contact informat ion; and references providing fully keyed citations to the assessment use literature. These databases are made more useful by decision-logic al programs that identify relevant assessments and supporting research literature. OLGA can thus save time and other resources by helping in vestigators concentrate on the most relevant elements of the existing literature. This focus will assist them in avoiding the problems of en ding up with the right answers to the wrong questions.