Scoring the Quality of Life Profile

Importance, Satisfaction and Quality Of Life Scores

Importance and Satisfaction scores range from:

1 (Not at All Important or Not at All Satisfied)
to
5 (Extremely Important or Extremely Satisfied).

Importance scores serve as a weight for converting enjoyment scores into quality of life scores:

[QOL=(Importance Score/3) * (Satisfaction Score-3)]

Thus, QOL Scores range from:

-3.33 (Not at All Satisfied with Extremely Important Issues)
to
3.33 (Extremely Satisfied with Very Important Issues).

QOL Scores above 0 reflect positive QOL, and those below 0 represent negative QOL.

Items rated as especially important produce especially high QOL scores for items where high satisfaction is indicated. Similarly, items rated as especially important produce especially low QOL scores where lack of satisfaction is indicated.

To illustrate, an individual who describes an item as Very Important (4) and reports being Very Satisfied (4) receives a QOL score of 1.33 (4/3 * 4-3). An individual who rates an item as Not Very Important (2) and reports being Not Very Satisfied (2) receives a score of -.67 (2/3 * 2-3). Items rated as being less important produce more moderate QOL scores.

Overall, a score of >1.50 is considered excellent and scores of .51 to 1.50 indicate a very acceptable situation. Scores of -.50 to +.50 indicate an adequate situation, scores of -.51 to -1.50 are problematic, and scores of <.-1.50 are very problematic.

Control and Opportunity Scores

As well as rating importance and satisfaction, participants were asked to rate the degree of control and the range of opportunities for nine items corresponding to the nine areas of life.

Also rated on a five point scale, scores ranged from 1 (Almost no control or Almost no opportunity) to 5 (Almost total control or A great many opportunities). Control and Opportunities Scores were then derived through a simple means of the nine items in each category.