Today a new paper was published in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy about the Quality of Life Inventory (QOLI). QOLI is an established rating scale of self-perceived quality of life across 16 domains. Norms for different psychiatric conditions when rated via the Internet, responsiveness to change following treatment, and the clinical impact of importance-weighting items have yet to be examined. To investigate these unanswered questions, important for the continued and expanded use of the QOLI, we compiled archival screening and post-treatment data from 20 studies featuring Internet-delivered psychological interventions for seven different psychiatric conditions and an undergraduate sample, totalling over 4000 participants. Disorder-specific norms were indicated by between-group analyses and are reported here, item-by-item. The QOLI showed adequate responsiveness to change and construct validity. Discrepancies were found when conducting between-group analyses with and without weighted items (more significant differences when items were not weighted) on both the screening and post-treatment data, suggesting that weighting is a procedure that is likely to have an impact when analysing QOLI results. Limitations and the needs for future research are discussed.
Full reference:
Lindner, P., Andersson, G., Öst, L.-G., & Carlbring, P. (2013). Validation of the Internet-administered Quality of Life Inventory (QOLI) in different psychiatric conditions. Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, 42, 315-327. [doi: 10.1080/16506073.2013.806584]