Formal title: A cross-national comparison of 8 generic quality of life (QoL) instruments
NHMRC ID: 1006334
Chief Investigators: Richardson J (Monash University, Australia)
Cummins, R (Deakin University, Australia)
Olsen, J (University of Tromso, Norway)
Kaplan, R (UCLA, USA)
Coast, J (University of Birmingham, UK)
Schlander, M (Institute for Innovation and Valuation in Health Care, Germany)
Objective: To compare instruments purporting to measure quality of life; to use survey results to discriminate between the 6 multi attribute utility (MAU) instruments which are most commonly used for the economic evaluation of health programs and the allocation of health budgets
Scope:
The instruments, respondents and countries included in the study are summarised in Tables 1-3.
Respondents self-reporting one of the disease conditions (depression, hearing loss, asthma, COPD, diabetes, arthritis, heart, cancer) also completed a disease specific questionnaire to confirm their condition and its severity (Table 3).
The instruments in the main questionnaire were administered in their entirety but in randomised order relative to each other.
Project Rationale
(i) Budgets are increasingly guided by economic evaluations which increasingly employ CUA. This technique relies upon multi attribute utility (MAU) instruments to include the quality of life. These instruments produce very different results and the allocation of a budget may depend upon the choice of MAU instrument. (ii) MAU and SWB (happiness) instruments have followed different theoretical and measurement traditions. The fields need integration. As a preliminary step towards determining the most appropriate instrument for measuring the value of health states, the relationship between SWB and MAU instruments should be understood. This project seeks to achieve this.
Click each link below to see the questionnaires
Core questionnaire
Multi-Instrument Comparison core questionnaire
Health specific questionnaires
Arthritis (AIMS2-SF - 26 questions)
Asthma (AQLQ - 20 questions)
Cancer (QLQ-C30 - 30 questions)
Depression (DASS21 and K10 - 31 questions)
Diabetes (DIABETES - 39 questions)
Hearing Loss (APHAB - 24 questions)
Heart problems (MacNew - 27 questions)
Brochure 1
The Assessment of Quality of Life (AQoL) Instruments and Multi Instrument Comparison (MIC) Study
Brochure 2
Subjective wellbeing, utility and quality of life: Results from the MIC project
Working Papers
Research Paper 85 - Richardson, J, Khan, MA, Iezzi, A, Maxwell, A. (2013). Cross-national comparison of twelve quality of life instruments, MIC Paper 7: Germany. Centre for Health Economics, Monash University, Melbourn
Research Paper 83 - Richardson, J, Khan, MA, Iezzi, A, Maxwell, A. (2012). Cross-national comparison of twelve quality of life instruments, MIC Paper 6: Norway. Centre for Health Economics, Monash University, Melbourne.
Research Paper 82 - Richardson, J, Khan, MA, Iezzi, A, Maxwell, A. (2012). Cross-national comparison of twelve quality of life instruments, MIC Paper 5: Canada. Centre for Health Economics, Monash University, Melbourne.
Research Paper 81 - Richardson, J, Khan, MA, Iezzi, A, Maxwell, A. (2012). Cross-national comparison of twelve quality of life instruments, MIC Paper 4: USA. Centre for Health Economics, Monash University, Melbourne.
Research Paper 80 - Richardson, J, Khan, MA, Iezzi, A, Maxwell, A. (2012). Cross-national comparison of twelve quality of life instruments, MIC Paper 3: United Kingdom. Centre for Health Economics, Monash University, Melbourne.
Research Paper 78 - Richardson, J, Iezzi, A, Khan, MA, Maxwell, A. (2012). Cross-national comparison of twelve quality of life instruments, MIC Paper 2. Centre for Health Economics, Monash University, Melbourne.
Research Paper 76 - Richardson, J, Iezzi, A, Maxwell, A. (2012). Cross-national comparison of twelve quality of life instruments: MIC Paper 1 Background, questions, instruments. Centre for Health Economics, Monash University, Melbourne.
Registration form for recipients and users of data from the MIC project at the Centre for Health Economics, Monash University
By ensuring registration we:
a) protect the rights of the Chief Investigators to use the data in accordance with our guarantee to them
b) have a record of studies using this data
c) have the capacity to put researchers working in similar directions in touch with each other, for the purpose of constructive collaboration (if requested)
We strongly recommend you seek the approval of instrument developers before using any of the questionnaires. (The AQoL questionnaires are available free of charge.)
If you agree to these conditions, please register your MIC data request using this online registration form.
You will be contacted by one of our team after registering.