Wisconsin Quality of Life Index
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Wisconsin Quality of Life Index
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Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute
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Historical Context The first Wisconsin Quality of Life Index (W-QLI) was developed for use in mental health in response to a need to provide appropriate information in the Wisconsin Medicaid Program for reauthorization of clozaril. Clozaril was then a new and expensive antipsychotic medication. At the time of development, outcomes in psychiatric patients were being measured predominantly in terms of symptoms. In fact, the Medicaid programs in 30 of 50 states in America were using a symptom improvement criteria for reauthorization of the drug under Medicaid reimbursement. Most were using a 20 percent symptom improvement criteria based on outcome measured with the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale(1). When clozaril was approved for use, the field lacked an inexpensive, easy-to-use, comprehensive QoL assessment tool for use in busy mental health settings. Our primary objective was to develop an inexpensive, easy-to-use, self-report and self-administered instrument that would reflect consumer values and goals for improvement with treatment. An advisory board was convened to guide the scale development and ensure that consumer needs were incorporated. We realized that the clinical and practical usefulness of an assessment instrument would be key to its successful adoption and use in the field. Thus, we developed an instrument that could be used to assess patient status, and that could also be used for monitoring and evaluating patient outcomes over time. Important features of all QoL instruments developed by the principal investigator are their dimensionality, inclusion of consumer goals, and provisions for multiple respondents. Descriptions of the index domains and underlying conceptual frameworks are provided in the User Information Section of this Web Site. (1) See The brief psychiatric rating scale, (p. 799-812) by J. Overall, D. Gorham, 1962, Psychological Report, Vol 10.
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