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Quality of Life and Quality of Care: an Integrated Model

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Encyclopedia of Quality of Life and Well-Being Research

Synonyms

Care as comfort; Care as QoL support; Care as relating; Care as service; Care-as-social support; Elder care

Definition

In the last two decades, theoretical and empirical research on quality of life (QoL) has been increasing rapidly, but still there is no generally agreed definition. In this situation, specialized concepts such as health-related QoL are introduced which tend to reduce the concept of QoL. Here we propose a concept of care-related QoL (crQoL) which supports a more holistic perspective.

The following definition tries to capture the most relevant features of current definitions:

  • Definition: Quality of life is the extent to which persons enjoy a good life by achieving a balance in their relations with themselves and with others through creating and sustaining adequate conditions and own potentials over the life course.

  • QoL in old age implies that the nature of this balance is changing with age.

  • Care-relatedQoL integrates the ways in which QoL is influenced by...

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Correspondence to Marja Vaarama .

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Vaarama, M., Pieper, R. (2014). Quality of Life and Quality of Care: an Integrated Model. In: Michalos, A.C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Quality of Life and Well-Being Research. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0753-5_855

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0753-5_855

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-007-0752-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-007-0753-5

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