MEASURING THE QUALITY-OF-LIFE OF SEVERELY MENTALLY-ILL PEOPLE USING THE LANCASHIRE QUALITY-OF-LIFE PROFILE

Quality of life (QOL) has become an important outcome measure for many disorders, including mental illness. The Lancashire Quality of Life P rofile (LQOLP) was developed for use in operational contexts, and has been translated into several languages. It is in use in several Europe an and North American community psychiatric services. The present pape r addresses the questions: how easy is it to use?; how reliable is it? ; do the results of the LQOLP vary by setting in a meaningful way?; ho w do the results co-vary with measures of clinical symptoms and social functioning?; how well does it measure change?; is it clinically usef ul? While most of the answers to these questions are favourable, there is a need for further research and development of the profile, in par ticular with reference to the consequences of the use of the profile a s a routine monitoring instrument and the most appropriate form of sta tistical analysis in longitudinal data-sets.