Quality of Life Assessments

Core Quality-of-Life Modules

Demographics
Demography is collected to describe the database and to serve as potential covariates in the analysis. When similar demographic information is collected as part of a clinical Case Record Form, discrepancies are resolved with the CRF as the standard. The demographic variables include age, gender, marital status, race/ethnic origin, occupation, education, income, and disability status.

Overall Perceived Health
This summary scale consists of five 10-point linear analogue scales (“The very worst I ever felt” – “The very best I ever felt”)1 that assess five domains: overall, physical, emotional, personal life, and job/work.

Physical Function
The physical function items include assessing personal care, ambulation, household tasks, sexual function and recreational activities.

Mental and Emotional Health
 The construct is measured using two major domains representing Psychological Distress with corresponding subscales of anxiety, depression, and loss of emotional control, and Psychological Well-Being with subscales of general positive affect, emotional ties, and life satisfaction.

Health Perceptions
The general health perception involves an overall measure of General Perceived Health with subscales of vitality, general health, including bodily disorders and sleep disturbance.
Cognitive Functioning
General Cognitive Functioning is assessed by subscales of Mental Acuity,  Cognitive Performance and Detachment/disorientation.

Work and Social Role Functioning
Daily work responsibilities or performance in daily role or routine is first anchored on a scale of 1 through 7 concerning the most recent work day and how well work was undertaken over the past month. Ten items form the Work Well-Being scale. The items include work/daily role satisfaction, enthusiasm, performance, challenge, keeping up, tiredness/alertness, concentration, feeling physically, and general feelings a the beginning and end of the work day.  The leisure scale, assesses perception about the quality of leisure time activities.

Sexual Functioning
Sexual function is measured using a brief rating index which assesses five levels of sexual-symptom distress.  This section is confidential and contains gender-specific scales.

Side Effects and Symptoms
A standard set of potential side effects of medications determines the presence or absence, frequency, and degree of general distress. Symptoms are both generic and disease-specific.  Symptom terms are phrased so that it is understandable to those with little or no familiarity with medical terminology.  The measurement includes prevalence, severity and frequency.

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