Concepts and Measurement of Quality of Life in Health Care (Philosophy and Medicine, 47)

Questions concerning the notion of quality of life, its definition, and its ap­ plications for purposes of assessment and measurement in social and medical contexts, have been widely discussed in Scandinavia during the last ten years. To a great extent this discussion mirrors the international develop­ ment in the area. Several methods for the assessment and measurement of quality of life have been borrowed from the UK and the US and then further developed in northern Europe. But there has also been an internal develop­ ment. This holds in particular for the social arena, where Scandinavia has had a special tradition both in theory and practice. In this volume an attempt is made to illustrate some aspects of the philo­ sophical, and in general theoretical, discussion concerning quality of life in Scandinavia. In addition, some prominent scholars from other parts of Europe, i. e. , France, the Netherlands, the UK and Italy, have been invited to contribute. The volume is divided into three sections. The first contains philosophical analyses of the general notion of quality of life and proposes a number of different explications. The second section considers various ap­ plications of the notion of quality of life in health care. The papers serve to disentangle some intellectual and ethical problems that stem from these ap­ plications. The third section is more practical and focuses on methods of measuring quality of life in medicine and health care. Front Matter....Pages i-viii Introduction....Pages 1-15 Front Matter....Pages 17-17 Aristotle on the Good Life and Quality of Life....Pages 19-34 Towards a Theory of Happiness: A Subjectivist Notion of Quality of Life....Pages 35-57 Happiness, Life and Quality of Life: A Commentary on Nordenfelt’s ‘Towards a Theory of Happiness’....Pages 59-62 On Need and Quality of Life....Pages 63-78 Needs, Rights and Resources in Quality of Life Research....Pages 79-93 Does Self-Deception Enhance the Quality of Life?....Pages 95-114 Front Matter....Pages 115-115 Quality of Life: Why Now? A Sociological View....Pages 117-134 Reflections on the Notion of ‘Quality of Life’....Pages 135-160 Changing Preferences: Conceptual Problems in Comparing Health-Related Quality of Life....Pages 161-180 Quality of Life and Handicapped People....Pages 181-198 Front Matter....Pages 199-199 The Plausibility of Quality-of-Life Measures in Different Domains of Health Care....Pages 201-227 Analyzing Changes in Health-Related Quality of Life....Pages 229-240 On General and Need-Related Quality of Life: A Psychological Theory for Use in Medical Rehabilitation and Psychiatry....Pages 241-255 A Psychiatric and Interactional Perspective on Quality of Life....Pages 257-276 Back Matter....Pages 277-287

This volume brings together a number of scholarly studies on the definition, assessment and measurement of human quality of life. The book contains fundamental analyses of basic concepts such as welfare, wellbeing, happiness and quality of life itself, but contains also discussions on the application of such concepts for measuring purposes mainly in a health care context.
Although the approach to these problems in the book is predominantly philosophical, there are also some studies which take a different, mainly sociological and medical, point of view. Most of the authors have a Scandinavian origin and their essays mirror the current debate on quality of life in northern Europe. The book however also contains contributions by distinguished scholars from the U.K., France, Italy and the Netherlands.