Quality of life studies form an essential part of the evaluation of any treatment. Written by two authors who are well respected within this field, Quality of Life: The Assessment, Analysis and Interpretation of Patient-reported Outcomes, Second Edition lays down guidelines on assessing, analysing and interpreting quality of life data. The new edition of this standard book has been completely revised, updated and expanded to reflect many methodological developments emerged since the publication of the first edition. Covers the design of instruments, the practical aspects of implementing assessment, the analyses of the data, and the interpretation of the results Presents all essential information on Quality of Life Research in one comprehensive volume Explains the use of qualitative and quantitative methods, including the application of basic statistical methods Includes copious practical examples Fills a need in a rapidly growing area of interest New edition accommodates significant methodological developments, and includes chapters on computer adaptive testing and item banking, choosing an instrument, systematic reviews and meta analysis This book is of interest for everyone involved in quality of life research, and it is applicable to medical and non-medical, statistical and non-statistical readers. It is of particular relevance for clinical and biomedical researchers within both the pharmaceutical industry and practitioners in the fields of cancer and other chronic diseases. Reviews of the First Edition – Winner of the first prize in the Basis of Medicine Category of the BMA Medical Book Competition 2001: “This book is highly recommended to clinicians who are actively involved in the planning, analysis and publication of QoL research.” CLINICAL ONCOLOGY “This book is highly recommended reading.” QUALITY OF LIFE RESEARCH

The assessment of patient reported outcomes and health-related quality of life continue to be rapidly evolving areas of research and this new edition reflects the development within the field from an emerging subject to one that is an essential part of the assessment of clinical trials and other clinical studies. The analysis and interpretation of quality-of-life assessments relies on a variety of psychometric and statistical methods which are explained in this book in a non-technical way. The result is a practical guide that covers a wide range of methods and emphasizes the use of simple techniques that are illustrated with numerous examples, with extensive chapters covering qualitative and quantitative methods and the impact of guidelines. The material in this new third edition reflects current teaching methods and content widened to address continuing developments in item response theory, computer adaptive testing, analyses with missing data, analysis of ordinal data, systematic reviews and meta-analysis. This book is aimed at everyone involved in quality-of-life research and is applicable to medical and non-medical, statistical and non-statistical readers. It is of particular relevance for clinical and biomedical researchers within both the pharmaceutical industry and clinical practice.

Clinical trials have two purposes -- to treat the patients in the trial, and to obtain information which increases our understanding of the disease and especially how patients respond to treatment. Statistical design provides a means to achieve both these aims, while statistical data analysis provides methods for extracting useful information from the trial data. Recent advances in statistical computing have enabled statisticians to implement very rapidly a broad array of methods which previously were either impractical or impossible. Biostatisticians are now able to provide much greater support to medical researchers working in both clinical and laboratory settings. As our collective toolkit of techniques for analyzing data has grown, it has become increasingly difficult for biostatisticians to keep up with all the developments in our own field. Recent Advances in Clinical Trial Design and Analysis brings together biostatisticians doing cutting-edge research and explains some of the more recent developments in biostatistics to clinicians and scientists who work in clinical trials.

ABSTRACT: Helping patients achieve an optimal quality of life through patient-centered treatment planning should be the ultimate goal of all oral health care providers. However, this issue extends beyond the realm of the individual clinician's office. This text presents quality-of-life research from various fields, including psychology, public health, and general health care; discusses how a patient-centered approach can be applied to basic oral and craniofacial research, clinical dental practice, community dental health issues, and dental education; and addresses how oral health-related quality of life relates to treating and understanding different patient populations, such as children with special needs, medically compromised patients, patients with oral cancer, and patients with chronic facial pain. Also discussed is how factors such as race/ethnicity, gender, and age can affect oral health-related quality-of-life concerns and treatment strategies. Finally, the book offers an outlook on the role that oral health-related quality of life will play in future research and dental education.

The rubric "Quality of Life" first came to the explicit attention of the medical profession a little over thirty years ago. Despite the undoubted fact that each one of us has his or her own Quality of Life, be it good or bad, there is still no general agreement about its definition, or the manner in which it should be evaluated. Although much has been written about quality of life, this work has been largely concerned with population-based studies, especially in health policy & health economics. The importance of individual quality of life has been neglected, in part because of a failure to define quality of life itself with sufficient care, in part perhaps because of a belief that it is impossible to develop a meaningful method of measuring individual variables. It is a fundamental belief of the editors of this book that the primary focus of quality of life is & must continue to be the individual, who alone can define it & assess its changing personal significances. The individual perspective is of vital importance not only to patients but to their doctors too, & is more & more frequently proposed as the most meaningful measure of outcome in clinical research, especially in non-remitting or chronic conditions. Workers who wish to consider wider aspects of influences on the illnesses suffered by individuals & the health care that they receive will find much to stimulate them in the methods of documentation proposed in this book. Those mainly concerned with population samples rather than individuals may also find the sensitive methods of investigation proposed here not only to be applicable to their own areas of interest, but also rewarding in perhaps unexpected ways.

Researchers in all clinical fields are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of quality of life measurements in judging the efficacy of a given treatment, and it is becoming more common for psychological criteria to play an important role in the evaluation of therapies. In the past ten years a number of methods have been developed for carrying out such assessments. Quality of life research does however use special statistical methods which might well be unfamiliar to the clinician. Quality of life assessment in clinical trials: methods and practice explores these methods in a non-mathematical manner, comparing and contrasting the tools available to the clinician, and highlighting any potential pitfalls. It describes the methods used to collect and analyse quality of life data. The book will have widespread appeal to clinical trialists and researchers from a wide range of specialties.

The EUROHIS project has focused on the comparability of health surveys and has uncovered some problems that arise when aiming to compare data from different countries. Similar problems of cross-cultural comparability also arise when comparing data from other sources, such as health registers, and are just as complex and difficult to tackle. One of the main advantages of health surveys, however, is the relatively low cost and time involved in adapting them according to the needs of health policy-makers. This work shows that the output from the EUROHIS project provides common instruments for the measurement of eight health indicators. The development of these instruments has required careful consideration of relevant common concepts and how these should be defined and operationalized. The instruments are freely available for use by all countries, with the aim of enhancing national health information systems and facilitating cross-national comparisons of health data.

It was over five years ago that the Centre for Medicines Research organized a workshop entitled "Quality of Life: Assessment and Application". This workshop brought together a unique group of participants, some of whom had been involved in studies on quality of life for well over a decade, whilst others were meeting the subject for the first time. This blend of experienced researchers and enthusiastic newcomers was a great stimulus to the discus sions which followed individual presentations as well as that resulting from the study groups. In the ensuing publication, a balance was sought between a consideration of the complex principles underlying the assessment of quality of life and the application of such assessments to specific clinical conditions which necessitated this approach. The organization in 1991 of a second workshop entitled "Quality of Life Assessment: Key Issues in the 1990s" resulted in a further consideration of the quality of life philosophy, concepts and key instruments together with an update on assessing quality of life in a number of major disease areas. Of particular importance was an examination of various viewpoints concerned with ethical questions and their implications, and quality oflife from industry, regulatory and health care purchasers' perspectives. As a result of this second workshop, the editors of the original book referred to above decided to produce a second edition with a number of updates and additional chapters.

The aim of this encyclopedia is to provide a comprehensive reference work on scientific and other scholarly research on the quality of life, including health-related quality of life research or also called patient-reported outcomes research. Since the 1960s two overlapping but fairly distinct research communities and traditions have developed concerning ideas about the quality of life, individually and collectively, one with a fairly narrow focus on health-related issues and one with a quite broad focus. In many ways, the central issues of these fields have roots extending to the observations and speculations of ancient philosophers, creating a continuous exploration by diverse explorers in diverse historic and cultural circumstances over several centuries of the qualities of human existence. What we have not had so far is a single, multidimensional reference work connecting the most salient and important contributions to the relevant fields. Entries are organized alphabetically and cover basic concepts, relatively well established facts, lawlike and causal relations, theories, methods, standardized tests, biographic entries on significant figures, organizational profiles, indicators and indexes of qualities of individuals and of communities of diverse sizes, including rural areas, towns, cities, counties, provinces, states, regions, countries and groups of countries.

Note: Book no longer includes a CD-ROM, but the files are available online for download for both book and ebook purchasers at www.wiley.com/go/frisch "This book defines an approach to well-being and positive psychology, that is state-of-the-art, evidence-based, empirically validated, and an outstanding guide for anyone interested in learning about the practice of positive psychology or well-being." —Ed Diener, the world authority on happiness from the University of Illinois and President of the International Positive Psychology Association. Endorsed by Christopher Peterson of the University of Michigan and taught in Marty Seligman's Masters in Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) Program at the University of Pennsylvania, this book teaches a simple, step-by-step method for putting the fields of well-being and positive psychology into practice. It is a "one-stop shopping" manual with everything you need in one book and with one approach. This approach to greater happiness, meaning, and success is “evidence-based” and empirically validated. It has been successfully tested in three randomized controlled trials, including two NIH-grant funded trials conducted by James R. Rodrigue and his colleagues at Beth Israel and Harvard Medical Centers in Boston. Quality of Life Therapy also known as Quality of Life Therapy and Coaching or QOLTC is designed for use by therapists, coaches, organizational change-agents/consultants, and all professionals who work to improve peoples' well-being. Many laypersons and clients have found the book useful as well. This book explains the "Sweet 16" Recipe for Joy and Success, along with validated interventions for each: 1. Basic Needs or Wealths: Health, Money, Goals-and-Values/Spiritual Life, Self-Esteem 2. Relationships: Love, Friends, Relatives, and Children 3. Occupations-Avocations: Work and Retirement Pursuits, Play, Helping-Service, Learning, Creativity 4. Surroundings: Home, Neighborhood, Community