Objective: The number of elderly individuals who suffer from dementia is increasing. Yet little is known about their subjective well-being and health-related quality of life (HrQOL), which is an important criterion of effectiveness and amelioration of psychotherapy and medical care. Valid, reliable and sensitive HrQOL measures are essential for the evaluation of these outcome variables in people with dementia. During the last years, studies have shown that it is possible to question dementia patients directly about their HrQOL. At present, no disease specific HrQOL self assessment instrument is available in French. The purpose of this study is to validate a disease specific instrument, the Dementia Quality of Life (D-QOL, Brod et al, 1999) in a Swiss-French speaking population with dementia.
Design: Linguistic and psychometric validation of de D-QOL.
Materials and Methods: 60 Swiss French speaking subjects diagnosed with mild to moderate dementia were evaluated with the D-QOL, the Medical Outcomes Study (MOS) 36-item Short-Form health survey (SF-36, Ware et al., 1992), the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE, Folstein et al., 1975), the Hospital Anxiety and Depression rating Scale (HAD, Zigmond et al., 1983) and a socio demographic questionnaire. Patients were recruited in hospitals, day centers and socio-medical institutions in Geneva.
Results: Preliminary results show that the D-QOL is applicable in elderly people with dementia and allows to evaluate their HrQOL for an MMSE of 12 and more. Reliability, validity and feasibility of the D-QOL will be shown.
Conclusion: It is possible to assess HrQOL in mild to moderate demented subjects using self-assessment.
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