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The World Health Organization Quality of Life Scale Brief Version: a validation study in patients with schizophrenia

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Abstract

Purpose

The World Health Organization Quality of Life Scale Brief Version (WHOQOL-BREF) is used for patients with schizophrenia although no validation is available. This work addresses this issue by dealing with its psychometric properties in a clinical sample of patients with schizophrenia.

Methods

Two hundred forty-one patients from 10 Adult Mental Health Care Centers (AMHCC) meeting the following inclusion criteria were included: (1) International Classification of Diseases-10 or ICD-10 diagnosis of schizophrenia, (2) Global Assessment of Functioning scores or GAF ≤ 50, 3) Illness duration of more than 2 years and (4) Clinical stability at assessment time. Patients were evaluated at baseline and at one-year follow-up regarding quality of life (QOL), clinical variables and other psychosocial measures.

Results

Internal consistency was excellent for the total WHOQOL-BREF (0.88 at baseline and 0.89 at follow-up) and adequate (0.65–0.78 at baseline; 0.66–0.79 at one-year follow-up) for the WHOQOL-BREF domains. Correlations between WHOQOL-BREF scores and those of global functioning, psychiatric symptoms, disability and social support ranged between small and large. There were significant differences between groups of patients with schizophrenia in the WHOQOL-BREF. Patients who were anxious, disabled, lacked social support and used more social services scored significantly lower in some or all WHOQOL-BREF domains. Changes in WHOQOL-BREF scores were positively associated with changes over time in global functioning, social support and use of health services, and negatively with psychiatric symptoms and disability (correlation coefficients between small and moderate). After one-year follow-up, patients improved in overall functioning and there was a decrease in psychiatric symptoms.

Conclusions

This study shows that the WHOQOL-BREF has good reliability and validity, and suggests that it is suitable for the assessment of QOL in patients with schizophrenia.

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Abbreviations

QOL:

Quality of life

WHOQOL-100:

World Health Organization Quality of Life Scale

WHOQOL-BREF:

World Health Organization Quality of Life Scale Brief Version

AMHCC:

Adult Mental Health Care Centers

GAF:

Global Assessment of Functioning

ICD-10:

International Classification of Diseases-10

PH:

Physical health

P:

Psychological

SR:

Social Relationships

E:

Environment

DSM-IV:

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fourth Edition

PANSS:

The Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale

DAS-s:

The World Health Organization Short Disability Assessment Schedule

FSSQ:

The Functional Social Support Questionnaire

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by grant PI050789 from the Ministerio de Salud de España, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Fondo de Investigación Sanitario, Madrid, Spain and grant 2009SGR00822 from the Agency for Management of University and Research Grants, Generalitat de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain. We thank the WHOQOL group for allowing the use of the WHOQOL-BREF.

Conflicts of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Correspondence to Lluís Lalucat-Jo.

Additional information

This study is conducted for the Research Group on Severe Mental Disorder.

Please refer the Appendix section for the members of Research Group on Severe Mental Disorder.

Appendix

Appendix

The Work Group on Severe Mental Disorder is composed of the following members from Adult Mental Health Care Centers in Barcelona: Mª Antonia Argany, Francesca Asensio, Marta Berruezo, Carlos Blecua, Ignasi Bros, Ana Isabel Cerrillo, Ana del Cuerpo, Amparo Escudero, Judit Farré, Clara Fort, Marisa García, Mª Carmen González, Eva Leno, Lluís Mauri, Isabel Mitjà, Mónica Montoro, Montserrat Nicolás, Rosa Ordoñez, Carmen Pinedo, Montserrat Prats, Mª Joaquina Redin, Mª Teresa Romero, Francesc Segarra, Juan Carlos Valdearcos, Immaculada Zafra, Matías Zamora y Antonio Zúñiga.

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Mas-Expósito, L., Amador-Campos, J.A., Gómez-Benito, J. et al. The World Health Organization Quality of Life Scale Brief Version: a validation study in patients with schizophrenia. Qual Life Res 20, 1079–1089 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-011-9847-1

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