A CRITICAL-REVIEW OF DIMENSION-SPECIFIC MEASURES OF HEALTH-RELATED QUALITY-OF-LIFE IN CROSS-CULTURAL RESEARCH

This article reviews six dimension-specific health-related quality of life (HRQL) measures which have been used cross-culturally. The instru ments reviewed are: the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI); the McGill Pa in Questionnaire (MPQ); the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depressio n (CES-D); the Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS); the General He alth Questionnaire (GHQ); and the Psychological General Well-Being Ind ex (PGWB). These instruments primarily represent the psychological or emotional dimension of HRQL, and are scales that were developed and va lidated in the USA, Canada or the UK. The review of specific studies f or each of the six instruments was not meant to be exhaustive, but rat her to give an indication of the ways in which the instruments have be en assessed or used in various countries. The focus throughout this ar ticle is on the psychometric properties (reliability, validity and res ponsiveness) of these scales in different cultures, as well as the pro cesses used to translate the instruments from English into another lan guage. Implications of the results of this review for cross-cultural u se of dimension-specific HRQL instruments are drawn.