Staff:staff and staff:client reliability of the Schalock & Keith (1993) Quality of Life Questionnaire

Abstract

A small-scale study of the inter-rater and staff:client reliability of the Schalock & Keith (1993) Quality of Life Questionnaire (QOL-Q) was conducted. Whilst the sample size was small and the QOL-Q achieved an acceptable overall level of reliability, the study replicated the pattern of low staff:client concordance and staff overestimation of the independence and autonomy of clients reported by Reiter & Bendov (1996). The results are briefly discussed in the context of the ongoing debate about the utility of proxy response in the literature.

Proxy respondents and the reliability of the Quality of Life Questionnaire Empowerment factor

“…Mean staff Empowerment scores were higher, but the difference with consumers’ self‐reports was not significant. The correlation between staff and consumer Empowerment scores was 0.07, but in contrast to Rapley et al . (1998) , the staff:consumer correlations for the other three QOL‐Q factors were also not significant for Reiter & Bendov’s (1996) sample.…”

“…Schalock & Keith (1993) used a large standardization sample of people with intellectual disability to evaluate the psychometric characteristics of the QOL‐Q. Schalock & Keith’s (1993) staff:consumer Empowerment findings contrast sharply with Rapley et al . 1998 ) data.…”

“…Rapley et al . (1998) found very satisfactory staff:staff correlations for all four QOL‐Q factors for 63 pairs of staff responses, with r = 0.88 ( P 0.01) for the Empowerment factor.…”

“…(1998) found very satisfactory staff:staff correlations for all four QOL‐Q factors for 63 pairs of staff responses, with r = 0.88 ( P 0.01) for the Empowerment factor. Using self‐report QOL‐Q responses from 13 consumers and independent QOL‐Q evaluations about each of these consumers by two staff members, Rapley et al . (1998) reported satisfactory correlations for three QOL‐Q factors, but substantial problems with the Empowerment factor.…”

“…Rapley et al . (1998) also reported differences between staff and consumers in the absolute level of QOL‐Q factor scores.…”