This study details the psychometric evaluation of the Quality of Life Inventory (QOLI), a measure of life satisfaction that may complement symptom-oriented measures of psychological functioning in evaluating the outcome of interventions aimed at ameliorating mental disorders, disabling physical illnesses, and community-wide social problems. Test-retest coefficients for the QOLI ranged from .80 to .91, and internal consistency coefficients ranged from .77 to .89 across 3 clinical and 3 nonclinical samples. QOLI item-total correlations were found to be adequate, and the QOLI had significantly positive correlations with 7 related measures of subjective well-being, including a peer rating and clinical interview measure. Significant negative correlations were obtained between the QOLI and measures of general psychopathology, anxiety, and depression. Clinical and nonclinical criterion groups differed significantly in mean QOLI scores. QOLI norms are presented, and the usefulness of the QOLI for assessing treatment outcome and for psychotherapy treatment planning is discussed.Many of the advances in clinical psychology stem from applications of experimental psychology to the clinical enterprise. For example, much of cognitive-behavioral therapy is predicated on applications from the learning, cognitive, social, and developmental branches of experimental psychology (Brewin, 1988;Masters, Burish, Hollon, & Rimm, 1987). It is surprising that clinical psychologists have largely ignored the voluminous experimental literature on quality of life, life satisfaction, and subjective well-being and its potential clinical applications (Diener, 1984;Schuessler& Fisher, 1985). This abundant literature, including the work of sociologists and social and personality psychologists, has obvious implications for assessing the outcome of psychotherapy, for defining "mental health" and positive adjustment, and for understanding numerous psychological disorders, including depression (Frisch, 1989).Authors from diverse traditions have argued for the development of non-pathology-oriented measures of subjective wellbeing to augment those that focus on negative affect and symptoms (

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The clinical and positive psychology usefulness of quality of life, well-being, and life satisfaction assessments depends on their ability to predict important outcomes and to detect intervention-related change. These issues were explored in the context of a program of instrument validation for the Quality of Life Inventory (QOLI) involving 3,927 clients from various clinical settings. Clinical norms were also generated that supplement existing nationwide norms. The predictive validity of the QOLI and life satisfaction in a university counseling center was supported in terms of its ability to predict academic retention both by itself and in conjunction with cumulative grade point average 1 to 3 years in advance. The QOLI was also found to be sensitive to treatment-related change in two naturalistic clinical settings and samples. The interpretation and intervention utility of measures of quality of life, well-being, and life satisfaction are discussed with respect to clinical and positive psychology research.

The face ofhealth care is changing rapidly. The hegemony of managed care system puts increasing pressure on clinicians to routinely conduct outcome evaluations to demonstrate the effectiveness of their efforts. In mental health or managed "behavioral health care," the emphasis is on brief treatments that demonstrably impact clients' problems, symptoms, and hnctioning in everyday life. At the same time, psychologists are searching for constructs and procedures that allow for integration across parahgms and disciplines in order to increase treatment efficacy and Electronic mail may be sent via Internet to michael-frisch@ baylor.edu. flexibility in the face of diverse clientele, including medical patients in need of both traditional and "behavioral medicine" interventions. In the past, successful innovation has come from the application of findings from experimental psychology to the clinical enterprise, as in cognitive-behavior therapies. Application of the burgeoning, interdisciplinary research on quality of life (QOL) and subjective well-being (SWB) may also further the clinical enterprise in psychology, medicine, and gerontology by (a) increasing our understanding of human behavior, in general, and clinical disorders such as depression and cancer, in particular; (b) providing a theoretical Gamework that facilitates clinical and conceptual integration; (c) extending clinical assessment to a new, highly relevant and practical realm of human functioning; and (d) encouraging the development of brief, but effective interventions.

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