There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

Abstract

Age- and gender-specific reference values for the quality of life (QoL) measures used in assessing the impact of growth hormone deficiency (GHD) are important. The objective of this study was to develop such data for the QoL-AGHDA instrument for the population of England and Wales and to demonstrate the QoL deficit in patients with GHD. For the purpose of this study, a questionnaire was developed that contained the EurQoL EQ-5D, QoL-AGHDA, questions recording an individual's general situation and social functioning, and a self-reported five-point rating scale of general health. The questionnaire was mailed out to a sample of 1,190 individuals drawn from the general population of England and Wales. Corresponding data for 836 patients were retrieved from KIMS (Pfizer International Metabolic Database). The postal survey data were weighted to ensure that they were representative of the general population. The mean weighted QoL-AGHDA scores for the general population were 6.2 and 7.1 for men and women, respectively, compared with 13.6 and 15.7 for patients. For both males and females the differences in mean QoL-AGHDA scores between the general population and patients were statistically significant for all age categories (p < 0.01). In the general population the mean QoL-AGHDA score for each category of self-assessed health status increased progressively, indicating a poorer QoL as health status declined. This study reports QoL-AGHDA normative values for the population of England and Wales and confirms the extent of QoL impairment in patients with GHD in comparison with the general population.

Related collections

Most cited references 25

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

A single European currency for EQ-5D health states. Results from a six-country study.

David Parkin, Paul Kind, Siem Oppe … (2003)

The EQ-5D questionnaire is a widely used generic instrument for describing and valuing health that was developed by the EuroQol Group. A primary objective of the EuroQol Group is the investigation of values for health states in the general population in different countries. As part of the EuroQol enterprise 11 population surveys were carried out in six Western European countries (Finland, Germany, The Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the UK) to value health states as defined by the EQ-5D using a standardised visual analogue scale (EQ-5D VAS). This contribution reports how a European set of general population preference weights was derived from the data collected in the 11 valuation studies. The scores from this set of preference weights can be applied to generate a VAS-based weighted health status index for all the potential 243 EQ-5D health states for use in multi-national studies. To estimate the preference weights a multi-level regression analysis was performed on 82,910 valuations of 44 EQ-5D health states elicited from 6,870 respondents. Stable and plausible solutions were found for the model parameters. The R(2) value was 75%. The analysis showed that the major source of variance, apart from 'random error', was variance between individuals (28.3% of the total residual variance). These results suggest that VAS values for EQ-5D health states in six Western European countries can be described by a common model.

0 comments Cited 156 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

The QLDS: a scale for the measurement of quality of life in depression.

Glynnis Hunt, Benjamin McKenna (1992)

It has been apparent for some time that utilisation of health services is more influenced by how people feel than by their 'objective' symptoms. Research has also shown that compliance with treatment regimens is dependent on the impact of that treatment on the patient's well-being. Such findings highlight the need to assess the patient's view of his or her progress through the health care system. This has led to a growing interest in quality of life assessment and, in particular, to the impact of illness and its treatment on the quality of life of the patient. Perhaps surprisingly, interest in quality of life measures for outcome assessment in Psychiatry has been slower to develop than in other specialties. While a number of clinician- and patient-completed measures of the severity of depressive symptoms exist, no measure of the quality of life of depressed patients is available. This paper describes the development and testing of the Quality of Life in Depression Scale (QLDS), a new measure designed to fill this gap. The theoretical basis for the instrument is that life gains its quality from the ability and capacity of the individual to satisfy his or her needs. The items included in the QLDS were derived from 30 qualitative interviews with depressed or recently recovered patients. Further interviews were held with depressed patients to establish the face and content validity of the instrument. Respondents had little trouble completing the questionnaire and found the content to be relevant to their experience of depression. The QLDS represents an important advance in our ability to understand the impact of depression on quality of life.