H. Tuynmanqua et al., QUALITY-OF-LIFE IN DEPRESSION SCALE (QLDS) - DEVELOPMENT, RELIABILITY, VALIDITY, RESPONSIVENESS AND APPLICATION, European psychiatry, 12(4), 1997, pp. 199-202
The joint development of the Dutch and English versions of the Quality
of Life in Depression Scale (QLDS) is described. The QLDS is based on
the needs model of quality of life developed by Hunt and McKenna. The
scale has good reliability and internal consistency. Test-retest corr
elation coefficients were 0.94 and 0.87 in the United Kingdom and the
Netherlands, respectively. Internal consistency alpha-coefficients wer
e 0.95 and 0.92, respectively. The validity of the scale is highly acc
eptable. The QLDS was shown to correlate relatively highly with establ
ished measures of well-being, and scores obtained with the measure wer
e related to severity of depression as assessed by the Hamilton Rating
Scale for Depression. The QLDS was shown to be responsive to change i
n an open study with fluoxetine in 540 patients with major depression.
The scale has wide applicability and has been shown to be user-friend
ly, both for respondents and administrators. It has been, or is in the
process of being, tested for reliability and validity in the followin
g additional countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark,
France, Germany, Italy, Morocco, Spain and the United States.