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List of contents
Part 1 Conceptual and Methodological Principles; Chapter 1 Introduction, C. R. B. Joyce, Ciaran A. O’Boyle, Hannah M. Mcgee; Chapter 2 Measuring the Quality of Life, Matti Häyry; Chapter 3 Cognitive Theories and Individual Quality of Life Assessment, Monika Bullinger; Chapter 4, Michael E. Hyland; Chapter 5 Methodological Issues in Individual Quality of Life Assessment, Per Bech; Chapter 6 Individualising Assessment in Intervention Studies, Stephen Senn; Part 2 Specific Approaches to Individual Quality of Life Assessment; Chapter 7 Interpretation of data from Health Status Measures, Crispin Jenkinson, Sue Ziebland; Chapter 8 Individualising Questionnaires, Yves Lacasse, Eric Wong, Gordon H. Guyatt; Chapter 9 The Patient Generated Index, Andrew M. Garratt, Danny A. Ruta; Chapter 10 The Schedule for the Evaluation of Individual Quality of Life, Anne Hickey, Ciarán A. O’Boyle, Hannah M. McGee, C. R. B. Joyce; Chapter 11, Robert M. Kaplan, David Feeny, Dennis A. Revicki; Chapter 12 Selected Methods for Assessing Individual Quality of Life, John Browne; Part 3 Applications of Individual Quality of Life Assessment; Chapter 13 Individual Quality of Life and Population Studies, Ann Bowling; Chapter 14 Individual Quality of Life and Assessment by Carers or ‘Proxy’ Respondents, Robert F. Coen; Chapter 15 Individual Quality of Life In Palliative Care, Dympna Waldron, Ciaran A O’Boyle; Part 4 Future Directions; Chapter 16 Individual Quality of Life, C. R. B. Joyce, Hannah M. Mcgee, Ciaran A. O’Boyle;
About the author
Joyce, C R B; McGee, Hannah; O'Boyle, Ciaran
Summary
The rubric Quality of Life first came to the explicit attention of the medical profession a little over thirty years ago. Despite the undoubted fact that each one of us has his or her own Quality of Life, be it good or bad, there is still no general agreement about its definition, or the manner in which it should be evaluated. Although much has been written about quality of life, this work has been largely concerned with population-based studies, especially in health policy and health economics. The importance of individual quality of life has been neglected, in part because of a failure to define quality of life itself with sufficient care, in part perhaps because of a belief that it is impossible to develop a meaningful method of measuring individual variables.
The editors of this book believe that the primary focus of quality of life is and must continue to be the individual, who alone can define it and assess its changing personal significance. The challenge of presenting this belief
