Aqol-4D

Quicklinks

• AQoL-4D questionnaire
• Scoring the AQoL-4D
• Diagram of the AQoL-4D Structure

References

Construction of Descriptive System

• Richardson J, Hawthorne G. (1998). 'The Australian quality of life (AQoL) instrument: Psychometric properties of the descriptive system and inital validation'. Australian Studies of Health Service Administration, 85, pp 315-342.
• Hawthorne G, Richardson J, & Osbourne R. (1999). 'The Assessment of Quality of life (AQoL) instrument: a psychometric measure of Health-Related Quality of Life'. Quality of Life Research, 8(3), pp 209-224. doi: 10.1023/A:1008815005736

Construction of Utility Weights

• Hawthorne G & Richardson J. 1997. ‘The assessment of quality of life (AQoL) instrument construction, initial validation and utility scaling’, Working Paper 76, Centre for Health Program Evaluation, Melbourne.
• Richardson, J & Hawthorne, G. (1999). 'Difficulty with Life and Death', in Economics and Health: 1998, Proceedings of the Twentieth Australian Conference of Health Economists, ed J. Baldry, School of Health Services Management, University of New South Wales, Sydney.

Validity

• Hawthorne G & Richardson J. 1997. ‘The assessment of quality of life (AQoL) instrument construction, initial validation and utility scaling’, Working Paper 76, Centre for Health Program Evaluation, Melbourne.
• Hawthorne G, Richardson J and Day NA. 2001. ‘A comparison of the assessment of quality of life (AQoL) with four other generic utility instruments’, Annals of Medicine, 33(5),    pp    358-370.
• Hawthorne G & Richardson J. (2001). 'Measuring the value of program outcomes: A review of multi attribute utility measures', Expert Review of Pharmacoeconomics and Outcome Research, 1(2), pp 215-228.
• Richardson J. 2010. Psychometric Validity and Multi Attribute Utility (MAU) Instruments, Research Paper 57, Centre for Health Economics, Monash University,    Melbourne.
• Richardson, J & Hawthorne, G. (1998). 'The Australian Quality of Life (AQoL) instrument: Psychometric properties of the descriptive system and initial validation', Economics and Health: 1997, Proceedings of the Nineteenth Australian Conference of Health Economists, ed A. Harris, School of Health Services Management, University of New South Wales, Sydney.

Reliability

• Hawthorne G, Richardson J et al. 1997. The Australian Quality of Life AQoL Instrument, Working Paper 66, Centre for Health Program Evaluation, Melbourne
• Test-retest reliabilty coefficients on page 35 in Richardson J, Chen, G, Iezzi, A & Khan, M. (2011). Transformations between the Assessment of Quality of Life AQoL Instruments and Test-Retest Reliability. Centre for Health Economics, Monash University, Melbourne.

Norms

• Hawthorne G, Richardson J and Day NA. 2001. ‘A comparison of the assessment of quality of life (AQoL) with four other generic utility instruments’, Annals of Medicine, 33(5),    pp    358-370.
• Hawthorne G, Korn S, & Richardson J. (2013). Population norms for the AQoL derived from the 2007 Australian National Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, 37(1),    pp    7-16.

Comparison with other MAUI

• Hawthorne G, Richardson J, Day NA. (2001). A comparison of the Assessment of Quality of Life (AQoL) with four other generic utility instruments. Annals of Medicine, 33, pp 358–70.
• Hawthorne G, Richardson J. (2001). Measuring the value of program outcomes: a review of utility measures. Expert Review of Pharmacoeconomics Outcomes and Research, 1(2), pp 215-28.
• Hawthorne G, Richardson J, Day N. (2001). A comparison of five multi-attribute utility instruments. Australian Studies of Health Services Adminstration, 89, pp 151-79.

Conceptualisation

• WHO concept of Handicap.

Description

• 4 separately scored dimensions, each with 3 items.
• A simple global ‘utility’ score

Dimensions

• Independent Living - self-care, household tasks and mobility;
• Relationships - friendships, isolation and family role;
• Mental Health- sleeping, worrying and pain.
• Senses - seeing, hearing and communication.

Construction

Descriptive System

• Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the construction item bank completed by a representative sample of 112 members of the public across SEIFA groups and 143 hospital patients.
• Items were collected from 14 independent Qol scales, iterative consultations with clinicians, researchers and population focus groups.

Scaling System

• TTO interviews were done with 350 randomly selected members of the public across SEIFA groups to determine utility weights for items, dimensions and AQoL “all worst”
• Multiplicative models to combine items into dimensions
• Multiplicative model to combine dimensions into a global index

Timing

• AQoL-4D takes about 1-2 minutes to complete.

Research team

• J Richardson (team leader), G Hawthorne, H McNeil