Approaches to Measuring Quality of Life and their Relevance to Mental Health

Objectives: This paper describes the ‘sociological’ and ‘health-related’ approaches to the measurement of quality of life and aims to describe their major findings, shortcomings and potential uses with mental health problems. Method: The literature is selectively reviewed to illustrate the major developments and conclusions. Results: Despite the lack of an accepted definition of quality of life, sociological approaches have repeatedly shown in general populations, the mentally ill and the elderly that subjective assessments are more influential in determining expressions of happiness, wellbeing and life satisfaction than are the objective circumstances of a person's life. This supports the use of subjective judgements as the basis for quality-of-life determinations. Conclusions: The quality-of-life approaches can help to answer a broad range of questions of interest to psychiatry. Health-related quality-of-life approaches are potentially useful methods of demonstrating the impact of mental illness and the benefit of interventions. Further work is required to determine whether the commonly used measures are sensitive to change.