Quality of life with asthma: the existential and the aesthetic

'Quality of life' has become an important feature of research into patient outcomes, but an agreed definition of the term remains elusive. In order to empirically assess the meaning of quality of life for lay people, an ethno graphic study was conducted using a sample of 22 patients suffering chronic , moderately severe asthma. The findings indicated that asthma was in gener al not considered to be important in the process of assessing or experienci ng quality. The principal source of value for respondents was described as the experience of happiness in the context of emotionally-significant socia l relationships. Sources of value appeared to be subject to variation betwe en individuals and through time, implying that quality of life should be co nsidered to be an existential concept. The process of attributing value to a subjective condition is best conceived of as an aesthetic one, involving an emotional engagement with (rather than rational evaluation of) everyday experience.