Report Viewer
NINDS CDE Notice of Copyright
Assessment of Quality of Life (AQoL)
Assessment of Quality of Life (AQoL)
| Availability |
Please visit this website for more information about the instrument: Assessment of Quality of Life. There is no license fee and no cost for downloading and using any of the AQoL instruments or algorithms subject to copyright restrictions. Registering the study is required before downloading the instruments.
|
| Classification |
Exploratory: Cerebral Palsy (CP)
|
| Short Description of Instrument |
There are several versions of the Assessment of Quality of Life (AQoL) (e.g., AQoL 8D, 7D, 6D, 4D). The four instruments differ in sensitivity and length in different domains of health. The tools are mostly for adults regarding their own (not proxy) Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL). They are multi attribute HRQoL tools developed to measure utility of health states as part of economic evaluation studies, particular cost utility analysis, and health service evaluation. There is a version: AQoL-6D for adolescents which has the following domains: independent living (physical ability), mental health, coping, social and family relationships, pain, and senses (vision, hearing and communication). It was developed initially for work in adolescent obesity.
|
| Scoring |
The AQoL consists of 15 items (attributes) covering five dimensions: illness (use of medicines, reliance on medicines and medical aid, need for regular treatment), independent living (assistance with self care, assistance with household tasks, mobility at home and community), social relationships (closeness and warmth, friendship and loneliness, family role), physical senses (vision, hearing, communication) and psychological wellbeing (sleep, low mood, pain). Each item has 4 response levels. To provide a profile of health-related quality of life, each item on the AQoL is scored out of 3 (where 'A' scores 0, 'B' scores 1, 'C' scores 2, and 'D' scores 3). The maximum score is 9 per domain and 45 in total, and a higher score indicates poorer quality of life. An algorithm is available to transform unweighted health-related quality of life scores into utility scores weighted by preferences. The AQoL provides a utility score that ranges from 1.00 (full health) to 0.00 (death-equivalent health states) to –0.04 (health states worse than death).
|
| Rationale/Justification |
It is a generic, HRQoL measure and as such is not likely to capture all domains of relevance to CP. Limited age range (starts 15 years). No validation in adolescents with CP. HRQoL was intended for economic evaluation (cost utility analysis).
|
| References |
Key References:
AQoL-6D [Internet]. AQoL. 2012 [cited 24 June 2016]. Available from: http://www.aqol.com.au/aqolquestionnaires/56.html.
Hawthorne G, Richardson J, Osborne R. The Assessment of Quality of Life (AQoL) instrument: a psychometric measure of health-related quality of life. Quality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation. 1999;8(3):209-224.
Other References:
Richardson J, Day NA, Peacock S, Iezzi A. Measurement of the quality of life for economic evaluation and the Assessment of Quality of Life (AQoL) Mark 2 Instrument. Aust Econ Rev. 2004;37(1):62-88.
Richardson J, Iezzi A, Khan MA, Maxwell A. Validity and reliability of the Assessment of Quality of Life (AQoL)-8D multi-attribute utility instrument. The Patient. 2014;7(1):85-96.
Richardson JR, Peacock SJ, Hawthorne G, Iezzi A, Elsworth G, Day NA. Construction of the descriptive system for the Assessment of Quality of Life AQoL-6D utility instrument. Health Qual Life Outcomes. 2012;10:38.
Document last updated July 2019
|