Assessing quality of life in older people: psychometric properties of the WHOQOL-BREF

Abstract

The World Health Organization has developed a brief generic questionnaire to assess quality of life, the WHOQOL-BREF. It has been studied in diverse groups, but not specifically in older people. The purpose of this study was to analyze the psychometric properties of the French version of the WHOQOL-BREF questionnaire in healthy older people and to compare the mean profiles of participants with the mean profile obtained in the international validation study of the WHOQOL-BREF. Of the total sample of 262 Swiss French speaking older participants, 122 completed a retest after 2 weeks. The WHOQOL-BREF items demonstrated high test-retest reliability and validity. The WHOQOL-BREF items were differentially related to physical and mental health measures (SF-12 components, morbidity, and depression), thereby demonstrating convergent and discriminant validity. Compared to the international validation sample of the WHOQOL-BREF, participants of the present study reported higher QOL on 22 of the 26 items. A comparison of item profiles between male and female participants revealed gender differences for two items only (social support and negative feelings). We conclude that the psychometric properties of the WHOQOL-BREF items in older adults are good. To consider the 24 specific facets that are assessed by the WHOQOL-BREF appropriately, we recommend using item profiles on the individual and the sample level.

Psychosocial factors and health as determinants of quality of life in community-dwelling older adults

“…The WHOQOL-BREF demonstrated good reliabilities for all four domains, in keeping with other studies [48,57]. Significant and large correlations were observed between the four QoL domains, again supporting previous research [56,57].…”

“…Significant and large correlations were observed between the four QoL domains, again supporting previous research [56,57]. This justifies our considering QoL in older adults at the facet level through a general QoL factor.…”

“…Cronbach's Alpha coefficients were calculated to assess the internal consistencies of the four quality of life domains. Some studies have highlighted the importance of considering QoL in older adults at a facet rather than domain level [56,57]. Therefore, PCA was used to derive a general quality of life factor for each cohort from all 26 items of the WHOQOL-BREF.…”

Validación del cuestionario de calidad de vida (WHOQOL-BREF) en adultos mayores chilenos

“…Validaciones del whoqol-bref se encuentran en la literatura en adultos mayores [8][9][10][11][12] , población general 13 y con problemas de salud y otras condiciones [14][15][16][17] . en Chile, un estudio ha usado la versión oficial española de este instrumento, sin embargo, en él no se describe si fueron evaluadas las características psicométricas del instrumento y confianza para la aplicabilidad en nuestro medio 18 .…”

Estructura Factorial y valores de referencia del WHOQoL-Bref en población adulta chilena

“…Las características psicométricas de este instrumento han sido reportadas en diversas investigaciones, tanto en sus primeras validaciones [7][8][9] , como en su posterior aplicación a grupos específicos [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] o determinados idiomas y países [19][20][21] .…”