Measuring the Quality of Life of Older Persons: A model with implications for community and public health nursing
Dennis Raphael, Ivan Brown, Rebecca Renwick, Maureen
Cava, Nancy Weir, Kit Heathcote
January 1996, 18 pages
Assessing the quality of life of older persons can meet a number of important social service and health care objectives. These include assessing the effects of illness and treatments, identifying need for services among older persons, and developing health enhancing environments. It is argued that most available models and approaches for measuring quality of life tend to be focused upon aspects of illness and disability, define the domains of quality of life too narrowly, and fail to consider aspects of personal control and potential opportunities for change and enhancement of one's life. A new model of quality of life and associated instrumentation, the Quality of Life Profile: Seniors Version, is presented. Results of a validation study involving 205 older persons in Ontario, Canada provided evidence concerning the psychometric properties of the instrument. Limitations of the instrument are presented and potential uses of the measure are explored.