The Palliative Care Quality of Life Instrument (PQLI): A new tool for measuring quality of life

Conceptualizing a Quality Plan for Healthcare

“…The client may have an information gap related to health matters such that a pathologic (i.e., repairable) state may not be perceived as a compromised function by them, or alternatively an entirely normal state might be perceived as diseased. 6 In reality, an individual's desire is developed (through a consultation and information exchange process) vis-à-vis the set of currently available actions: e.g., an individual learns about options to improve memory or believes he/she has impaired memory; he/she seeks health consultation; the health specialist diagnoses his/her condition; available actions (if any) to improve memory are presented (along with their merits and demerits); and he/she determines whether to receive the action or not. [This process also justifies the adoption of systematic approaches for informing the public (individuals) on health matters and the relevance of devices like 'social marketing' in health [131].…”

“…Many efforts have focused on developing reliable instruments for measuring it [6,21,56,60,104,114,121,125,130] and additional articles have measured it as an outcome while assessing clinical effectiveness. Medline's MeSH (Medical Subjects Headings) defines the term as 'a generic concept reflecting concern with the modification and enhancement of life attributes, e.g., physical, political, moral, and social environment; the overall condition of a human life' [MeSH].…”