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Schizophrenia Bulletin 2000 26(3):557-564;
© 2000 by Oxford University Press and the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center (MPRC)
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© Oxford University Press

Intervention Research in Psychosis: Issues Related to the Assessment of Quality of Life1

A. George Awad, M.B., B.Ch., Ph. D. and Lakshmi N.P. Voruganti, M.D., M.Sc.
Professor Emeritis, Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto Toronto, Canada, and Chief of Psychiatry/Physician Director, Mental Health Program, Humber River Regional Hospital Toronto
Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of Western Ontario London, Ontario, Canada

Send reprint requests to Prof. A.G. Awad, Mental Health Program, Humber River Regional Hospital, 2175 Keele St., Toronto, Ontario M6M 4Z4, Canada; e-mail: gawad{at}hrrh.on.ca

Quality of life has emerged as the ideal of modern medicine viewed from a biopsychosocial perspective. The concept has been increasingly used as an important attribute in patient care and clinical studies as well as the basis in many health economic evaluations. Although the concept has been extensively applied in a number of other medical fields such as oncology, cardiovascular, and arthritis, it is only recently that quality of life has received serious attention in the study of severe psychiatric disorders. For the concept to be meaningfully applied in the study of these disorders, several basic and methodological issues have to be adequately resolved. Five such issues are identified: definition of quality of life, the subjective/objective dichotomy, significant determinants of quality of life, how quality of life is measured, and the role of quality of life in clinical management and health economics. Unless these issues are adequately clarified and resolved, the recent heightened interest in the concept of quality of life may fade away, and that would be a missed opportunity in the mental health field.

Keywords: Quality of life / psychosis / schizophrenia / antipsychotics / conceptual models / research issues


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