不論在心理、醫療、公共衛生、經濟學等領域中,「生活品質」相關的研究隨著時代的進步也越來越受到重視。過去的研究者對個人生活品質的測量有兩種主要的方式,一個是以經濟學為基礎的總計指標法(aggregate index),所得到的結果是一個單一數值來代表生活品質;另一個則是以心理計量學為基礎的健康剖面法(health profile),所得到的結果是生活品質多向度的分數。本篇針對目前世界上最常用到的六個測量一般性健康相關生活品質的量表,包括:The Sickness Impact Profile (SIP)、Nottingham Health Profile (NHP)、The Quality of Well-Being Scale (QWB)、The Short-Form-36 Health Survey (MOS SF-36 簡為 SF-36)、The European Quality of Life Scale (EQ-5D 或 EuroQOL)以及The World Health Organization Quality of Life Questionnaire (WHOQOL)先做簡介,而後對這些量表做評論,最後作者提出目前關於此類量表的研究尚須探討的研究課題,並建議可繼續進行的研究方向。
As time goes on, more and more attention has been focused on ”quality of life (QOL)” related researches in the fields of psychology, medicine, public health, and economics. There are two major approaches to assessing individual's quality of life. One is based on economics and the other one is based on psychometrics. As a result, the first one provides a single aggregate index to represent individual's QOL. On the other hand, the second one provides multiple scores on diverse QOL dimensions. This paper briefly introduces six most common used generic health-related quality of life scales. They are Sickness Impact Profile (SIP), Nottingham Health Profile (NHP), Quality of Well-Being Scale (QWB), Short-Form-36 Health Survey (MOS SF-36 or SF-36), European Quality of Life Scale (EQ-5D or EuroQOL), and World Health Organization Quality of Life Questionnaire (WHOQOL). Comparisons and Critiques on the six scales are also provided. Finally, this paper suggests several possible further studies for those who are interested in this topic.