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A quality of life assessment tool to be used in occupational therapy is described, and initial psychometric data are presented.
Key words: life quality assessment * instrument development * multiple sclerosis * spinal cord injury
Abstract
The "Qual-OT" is an assessment tool that was developed to help define quality of life for the field of occupational therapy. The questionnaire was given to practicing occupational therapists (n = 194), people with spinal cord injuries (n = 78), and people with multiple sclerosis (n = 133). The information derived was used to test the premise that quality of life can be described uniformly, and that it is a construct about which therapists and clients have the same general idea. Factor analyses of the original questions yielded seven distinct factors. Single factor ANOVAs revealed that there were differences among the diagnostic groups on these factors. These differences showed that, for the most part, practicing occupational therapists obtained higher scores on the seven factors than the other two groups.
One of the goals of occupational therapy (CfT) is to improve the quality of life for persons with disabilities. Determining whether improvement has occurred often is based on therapists' observations, which are influenced by their personal or professional system of values. For example, a therapist may judge that improvement has occurred based on increases in the number of Ufe roles the client engages in or on a decrease in the amount of assistance he or she needs to get dressed. These changes may represent valid improvements in quality of life, but only if they are based on the client's beliefs as well.
Williams (1988) encouraged medical practitioners to systematically measure the quality of life of their patients to enhance therapeutic judgments and to improve the level of communication between patient and practitioner. This is particularly necessary, he claimed, because of the sometimes surprising discrepancy between the degree of value the two place on threatened aspects of life quality. Nonetheless, few studies that attempt to directly measure the clients' quality of life have been done in the field of OT.
Out of the perceived need for a comprehensive assessment tool to measure the quality of life of both patients and care givers, the Qual-OT was designed. The purpose of the...