DEVELOPMENT OF A STRUCTURED INTERVIEW SCALE FOR MEASURING QUALITY-OF-LIFE OF THE SEVERELY MENTALLY-ILL

An objective, semi-structured interview questionnaire (QOLIS) was desi gned and tested with 201 severely mentally ill people who were living in a state hospital and in community residential facilities. Factor an alysis resulted in eight factors with face validity and acceptable coe fficient alphas. The factors were found to be related meaningfully to overall level of functioning, total symptom scores, self-reported life satisfaction, and an established objective measure of quality of life . Criterion validity was established and the QOLIS factors significant ly differentiated people who were living in the community vs. living i n a state hospital. These results suggest that the QOLIS has potential as a valid outcome measure and program evaluation tool.