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Quality of life approaches in the health field usually focus on illness and disability. There is also limited attention to environmental determinants of health and well-being. The Quality of Life Profile was developed to provide a measure that considers both the components and determinants of health and well-being. Development of the Quality of Life Profile (QOLP)Development of the QOLP was carried out in tandem with the development of our other quality of life instruments over a five year period. As we developed items for our populations through a process of focus groups, participant review, and pilot testing and validation, we set aside items that were clearly relevant to people-in-general. These items were collected and piloted with classes of our students at Ryerson University and the University of Toronto. Once reviewed by the authors, they were placed into the Quality of Life Profile. Quality of Life Profile: Description and ContentThe QOLP consists of 54 items, six in each of nine sub-domains. The respondent provides Importance and Enjoyment (operationalized as Satisfaction) ratings along a 5 point scale. The amount of Control and Opportunities perceived in the nine sub-domains is also indicated. A Profile is created for each individual based on domain and sub-domain scores. Reliability of the QOLPInternal consistency coefficients (Cronbach's ) were calculated for Importance, Enjoyment, and QOL scores within each domain and sub-domain. For Importance, all domain and sub-domain indices exceeded .70, except for Spiritual Being (=.68) and Community Belonging (=.62). For Satisfaction, all coefficients exceeded .70 (all but two sub-domains were >.80). Table 2 shows the rather high values returned for QOL scores. The nine Control items were also internally consistent (=.87) as were the nine Opportunities items (=.92). Correlates of QOL ScoresHealth. Self-reported health was significantly correlated with Being scores, but not with Belonging or Becoming scores. Partialling procedures revealed that the health/quality of life correlation was not mediated by age; that is partial correlations of health with quality of life remained significant, controlling for age. Age and education. Age was related to Becoming scores, but not to Being or Belonging scores ns). Education was not related to any QOL score. Control and opportunities. Overall Control was strongly correlated with overall QOL , Being , Belonging, and Becoming scores. Opportunities however, was correlated only with Being scores. Control and Opportunities were not significantly related to each other (r=.22, ns). Finally 64% of respondents found filling out the QOLP "helpful", 14% found it "somewhat helpful," and 21% "not helpful" in relation to their agency duties. DiscussionIn this study, our intention was to sensitize agency employees and volunteers to the types of questions and issues that would be asked of agency clients. This process was found to be helpful to our staff. As a by-product of this process, we obtained initial data on the psychometric properties of the QOLP. This study suggests that the QOLP has promise as a measure of general health and well-being. It appeared to reliably discriminate even among individuals who are generally well and also demonstrated some suggestive relationships with self-reported health, age, and perceptions of personal control. Examples of Items in the Quality of Life ProfileDomain Item (Respondent rates each item for Importance and Satisfaction)
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The QOL Model
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