Summary
Arthritis is rarely fatal but profoundly affects functioning, so there are important quality of life implications for these patients. Pain and disability are key issues in this disease, and has stimulated discussion of more general points on measuring quality of life cross-culturally. Following general remarks about conceptualization of the issue, this report reviews some important scales and concludes that, while a number of generic and specific instruments exist which could be used to evaluate the lives of those with arthritis, several do not assess pain and none includes the broad range of quality of life issues, positive and negative, to provide a comprehensive assessment. Future scales will need to take account of the fluctuating nature of the disease and how this affects the stability of measurement.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Badley E (1992) The impact of musculoskeletal disorders on the Canadian population. Rheumtol 19: 337–340
Bergner JM, Bobbitt RA, Carter WB, Gilson BS (1981) The Sickness Impact Profile: development and final revision of a health status measure. Med Care XIX (8): 787–805
Bowling A (1993) Conceptual and measurement issues in identified dimensions of quality of life: social, psychological and physical. Paper to the Health Related Quality of Life Workshop, Society for Social Medicine, Sheffield
Caiman KC (1987) Definitions and dimensions of quality of life. In: Aaronson NK, Beckman J (eds) The quality of life of cancer patients. Raven Press, New York, pp 1–9
Clark WB, Clark SB (1980) Pain responses in Nepalese porters. Science 209: 410–412
Dieppe PA, Harkness JAL, Higgs ER (1989) Osteoarthritis. In: Wall PD, Melzack R (eds) Textbook of pain (second edition). Churchill Livingston, Edinburgh, pp 306–314
Deyo RA (1988) Measuring the quality of life of patients with rheumatoid arthritis. In: Walker SR, Rosser RM (eds) Quality of life: assessment and application. MTP Press, Lancaster, pp 205–222
Fabrega H, Timms S (1976) Culture, language and the shaping of an illness: an illustration based on pain. J Psychosomatic Res 20: 323
Fallowfield L (1990) The quality of life: the missing measurement in health care. Souvenir Press, London.
Ferraz MB, Quaresma MR, Aquino LRL, Atra E, Thgwell P, Goldsmith CH (1990) Reliability of pain scales in the assessment of literate and illiterate patients with RA. J Rheumatol 17(8): 1022
Fries J, Spitz P, Young D (1980) The dimensions of health outcomes: the Health Assessment Questionnaire, disability and pain scales. J Rheumatol 9: 789–793
Geddes DM (1985) Quality of life. Clinics Oncol 4(1): 161
Guyatt GH, van Zanten SJOV, Feeny DH, Patrick DL (1989) Measuring quality of life in clinical trials: a taxonomy and review. CMAJ 140: 1441–1447
Hochberg MC, Chang RW, Dwosh I, Lindsey S, Pincus T, Wolfe F (1992) The American College of Rheumatology 1991 revised criteria for the classification of global functional status in Rheumatoid Arthritis. Arth Rheumat 35(5): 498
Hunt SM, McEwan J, McKenna SP (1986) Cross-cultural issues in health indicators. Chapter 8. In: Measuring health status. Croom Helm, London, pp 203–224
Huskisson EC (1983) Visual Analogue Scales. In: Melzack R (ed) Pain measurement and assessment. Raven Press, New York, pp 33–37
Hyland M (1992) A reformulation of quality of life for medical science. Quality of Life Res 1: 267–272
Jacyna M (1992) Serious gastrointestinal adverse events to NSAIDS: complications in the treatment of arthritis. Brit J Med Econ: An evaluation of the cost of arthritis 15: 15–21
Jayson MIV, Dixon A StJ (1980) Rheumatism and Arthritis: What you should know about the problems and treatment. Pan, London
Jette AM (1980) Functional Status Index: reliability of a chronic disease evaluation instrument. Arch Phys Med Rehab 61: 395–401
Liang MH, Cullen K, Larson M (1982) In search of a more perfect mousetrap (health status or quality of life instrument). J Rheumatol 9(5): 775
Liang MH, Larson M, Cullen K, Schwartz JA (1985) Comparative measurement efficiency and sensitivity of five health status instruments for arthritis research. Arth Rheumat 28(5): 542–547
Lipton JA, Marbach JJ (1984) Ethnicity and the pain experience. Soc Sci Med 19(12): 1279–1298
Martin J, Meltzer H, Elliott D (1988) The prevalence of disability among adults. HMSO London
Meenan RF, Gertman PM, Mason JH (1980) Measuring health status in arthritis: the Arthritis Impact Measurement Scales. Arth Rheumat 23(2): 146–152
Meenan RF, Gertman PM, Mason JH, Dunaif R (1982) The Arthritis Impact Measurement Scales: further investigations of a health status measure. Arth Rheumat 25(9): 1048–1053
Meenan RF, Mason JH, Anderson JJ, Guccione AA, Kazis LE (1992) The content and properties of a revised and expanded Arthritis Impact Measurement Scales health status questionaire. Arthritis Rheumat 35(1): 1–10
Melzack R, Dennis SC (1978) Neurophysiological foundations of pain. In: Sternbach RA (ed) The psychology of pain, Raven Press, New York, pp 1–26
Pincus T, Callaghan LF (1986) Taking mortality in Rheumatoid Arthritis seriously – predictive markers, socio-economic status and comorbidity. J Rheumatol 13(5): 841–845
Ropes MW, Bennett GA, Cobb S, Jacox R, Jessar RA (1958) Revision of diagnostic criteria for Rheumatoid Arthritis. Arthritis and Rheumatism Foundation. Bull Rheumat Dis IX(4): 175–176
Ryff CD (1989) Happiness is everything, or is it? Explorations on the meaning of the psychological well-being. J Personality Social Psychol 57(6): 1069–1081
Sartorius N (1987) Cross-cultural comparisons of data about quality of life: a sample of issues. In: Aaronson NK, Beckman J (eds) The quality of life of cancer patients: Monographs of the European Organisation for research on the Treatment of Cancer (EORTC). Raven Press, New York, pp 19–24
Sartorius N (1993) WHO method for assessment of health-related quality of life. In: Walker SR, Rosser RM (eds) Quality of life assessment: key issues in the 1990’s. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, Netherlands
Scotch NA, Geiger HJ (1962) The epidemiology of rheumatoid arthritis — a review with special attention to social factors. J Chron Dis 15: 1037–1067
Shutty MS, Lundiff G, DeGood DE (1992) Pain complaints and the weather: weather sensitivity and symptom complaints in chronic pain. Pain 49: 199–204
Skevington SM (1994) Social comparisons in cross-cultural quality of life assessment. International Journal of Mental Health. Monograph on Quality of Life (in press)
Steinbroker O, Thaeger C, Batterman R (1949) Therapeutic criteria in Rheumatoid Arthritis. JAMA 262: 907–1013
Tugwell P, Bombardier C, Buchanan WW, Goldsmith CH, Grace E, Hanna B (1987) The MACTAR patient preference disability questionnaire - an individual functional priority approach for assessing improvement in physical disability in clinical trials in Rheumatoid Arthritis. J Rheumatol 14(3): 446–451
Wallston KA, Brown GK, Stein MJ, Dobbins CJ (1989) Comparing the short and long versions of the AIMS. J Rheumatol 16(8): 1105
Zborowski M (1952) Cultural components in responses to pain. J Social Issues 8: 16–30
Zola IK (1966) Culture and symptoms — an analysis of patients presenting complaints. Am Social Rev 31: 615–630
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1994 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Skevington, S.M. (1994). Quality of Life Assessment in Arthritis. In: Orley, J., Kuyken, W. (eds) Quality of Life Assessment: International Perspectives. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-79123-9_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-79123-9_11
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-79125-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-79123-9
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive