STUDY PROTOCOL FOR THE WORLD-HEALTH-ORGANIZATION PROJECT TO DEVELOP AQUALITY-OF-LIFE ASSESSMENT INSTRUMENT (WHOQOL)

The World Health Organization (WHO) has undertaken a project to develo p an instrument (the WHOQOL) for measuring quality of life. Quality of life is defined as an individual's perception of their position in li fe in the context of the culture and value systems in which they live and in relation to their goals, expectations, standards and concerns. It is a broad ranging concept affected in a complex way by the person' s physical health, psychological state, level of independence, social relationships, and their relationship tc salient features of their env ironment. The instrument will be developed in the framework of a colla borative project involving numerous centres in different cultural sett ings. In addition, it will have proven psychometric properties of vali dity, responsiveness and reliability and will be sensitive to the cult ural setting in which it is applied, whilst maintaining comparability of scores across different cultural settings. This paper outlines the characteristics of the planned instrument and the study protocol gover ning work on its development. To date steps 1 through 5 have been comp leted and work is progressing on step 6. It is anticipated that the in strument will be available for piloting in July 1993 and a final versi on available for use in June 1994.