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The University of Washington Quality of Life Scale

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Handbook of Disease Burdens and Quality of Life Measures

Abstract:

The need for validated head and neck specific cancer health-related quality of life (HRQOL) questionnaires has long been recognised. One of the first to be published was the University of Washington quality of life scale (UW-QOL) in 1993. The current version 4 covers 12 domains - pain, appearance, activity, recreation, swallowing, chewing, speech, shoulder function, taste, saliva, mood and anxiety. Each question is scaled from 0 (worst) to 100 (best) according to the hierarchy of response. The UW-QOL also contains three global questions, one as a five-point Likert scale asking about HRQOL compared to the month before the cancer, and the other two as a six-point Likert scale, one asking about health-related and the other asking about overall quality of life during ‘the past 7 days’. It also has a question asking about the importance of domains and an option for free-text comment.

The lack of any copyright agreements and its simplicity in scoring makes using the UW-QOL questionnaire easy to use. It has been translated into numerous languages. The questionnaire has face and content validity and there is considerable evidence to support the construct validity of its domains. Our work indicates the UW-QOL to be sensitive to changes in patient characteristics and to changes over time. The identification of suitable cut-offs in domain scores adds to the interpretability of the UW-QOL in a routine clinic setting to help screen patients with particular problems. The UW-QOL displays stability in patients beyond one year from treatment and shows expected differences in regard to normative values. Factor analyses indicate that two composite scores – physical function and social function – are logical, each being a simple average of 6 domain scores. Further work is necessary to develop a better understanding of these composite scores, which have the potential of being used to assess clinical effect in treatment evaluation studies and to develop sample size calculations.

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Abbreviations

BDI:

Beck Depression Inventory

CES-D:

Centre for Epidemiology Studies Depression Scale

DAS-24:

Derriford Appearance Scale

EORTC:

European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer

EQ-5D:

EuroQolEQ-5D

FACT:

Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy

FEES:

Fibreoptic Endoscopic Evaluation of Swallowing

HADS:

Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale

HRQOL:

Health-Related Quality of Life

IMRT:

Intensity Modulated Radiotherapy

LORQ:

Liverpool Oraql Rehabilitation Questionnaire

MDADI:

M.D.Anderson Dysphagia Inventory

NDII:

Neck Dissection Impairment Index

SDQ:

Shoulder Disability Questionnaire

SF-36:

medical outcomes study 36-item Short-Form health survey

SIP:

Sickness Impact Profile

SWAL-QOL:

Swallowing Quality of Life measure

TOM:

Therapy Outcome Measures

UWQOL:

University of Washington Quality of Life scale

VAS:

Visual Analogue Scale

VHI:

Voice Handicap Index

V-RQOL:

Voice Related Quality of Life

XeQOLS:

Xerostomia- related Quality of Life Questionnaire

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Authors
  1. S. N. Rogers
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  2. D. Lowe
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. Nutrition and Dietetics Nutritional Sciences Research Division School of Biomedical & Health Sciences, King's College London, Franklin‐Wilkins Building 150 Stamford Street, SE1 9NH, London, UK

    Victor R. Preedy (Prof.) (Prof.)

  2. Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, University of Arizona, Health Science Center 1295 N. Martin, P.O. Box 245155, 85724-5155, Tucson, AZ

    Ronald R. Watson (Prof.) (Prof.)

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Rogers, S.N., Lowe, D. (2010). The University of Washington Quality of Life Scale. In: Preedy, V.R., Watson, R.R. (eds) Handbook of Disease Burdens and Quality of Life Measures. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-78665-0_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-78665-0_6

  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-0-387-78664-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-0-387-78665-0

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