Assessing quality-of-life in older people in care homes.

BACKGROUND many measures of quality-of-life (QoL) may not be suitable for older people in care homes, and do not cover the most relevant domains for individuals. OBJECTIVE to describe QoL of older people living in care homes using the SEIQoL-DW and the two 10-point rating scales, and to describe how people were using these measures. DESIGN we used quantitative methods to describe QoL, and qualitative methods to explore residents' experiences of completing the measures. SETTING three care homes in the United Kingdom. SAMPLE twenty residents. METHODS residents completed the measures in interviews. We report descriptive statistics for QoL, the most important QoL domains for residents, completion rates and experiences of administering the instruments. RESULTS the most important QoL domains identified in the SEIQoL-DW were leisure activities; family; relationships; social life; independence and peace and contentment. Physical limitations and difficulty in understanding the instructions and concepts made completing it a challenge. The SEIQoL index was strongly correlated with a single 10-point rating of current QoL (rho = 0.67, P = 0.007). CONCLUSIONS to fully understand residents' QoL, detailed interview-based instruments, administered by an experienced interviewer are needed. To measure current QoL, for example, as an outcome measure, a simple single rating scale may suffice.