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The McMaster Health Index Questionnaire: an update

  • Chapter
Quality of Life Assessment: Key Issues in the 1990s

Abstract

Many health care interventions are designed to improve the quality of, rather than extend the duration of, the patient’s life. Since 1970, when work on the initial version of the McMaster Health Index Questionnaire (MHIQ) began, there has been increasing recognition of the need for direct measures of quality of life/health status to assess the benefit of such interventions as evidenced by a conference and workshops5,28 devoted to this topic. Quality of life and health status cover a range of diverse components such as the patient’s capacity for work, hobbies and psychosocial relationships, as well as the performance of essential acts of daily living in personal hygiene and ambulation. The importance of systematic measurement of these components presents challenges to clinicians and researchers, unlike measurement of inanimate substances and technology used in laboratory measurements. The assessment of quality of life/health status is affected by all the human reactions and variations that can occur when individual persons are the observers and the observed.

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Authors
  1. Larry W. Chambers
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Welsh School of Pharmacy, University of Wales College, Cardiff, UK

    Stuart R. Walker (Director of the Centre for Medicines Research, Carshalton, and Honorary Professor) (Director of the Centre for Medicines Research, Carshalton, and Honorary Professor)

  2. University College and Middlesex School of Medicine, London University, London, UK

    Rachel M. Rosser (Professor of Psychiatry and Head of Department) (Professor of Psychiatry and Head of Department)

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© 1993 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Chambers, L.W. (1993). The McMaster Health Index Questionnaire: an update. In: Walker, S.R., Rosser, R.M. (eds) Quality of Life Assessment: Key Issues in the 1990s. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-2988-6_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-2988-6_6

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-010-5328-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-011-2988-6

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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