Measuring Quality of Life in Back Patients

Abstract

This paper is a reliability and validity test of the Health Status Questionnaire (HSQ) 2.0. In addition, the Quality of Life Inventory (QOLI) is compared with the HSQ 2.0 to assess concurrent validity. The study is unique because these instruments are assessed for the first time using a sample of chronic back patients. Practitioners will therefore now be able to evaluate important quality of life issues and treatment changes in this population. The HSQ 2.0 was generally found to be valid for these patients. However, two scale domains were not differentiated due to unique characteristics of spinal disease patients. The QOLI, due to the limitation of measuring only psychological well-being, did not measure problems specific to back patients.