Abstract
Quality of life (QoL) in people with schizophrenia and other serious mental illnesses (SMI) is an important outcome goal, yet there is no consistent definition of the construct. We examined three aspects of QoL in persons with SMI: overall life satisfaction, physical health-related QoL (HRQoL), and mental HRQoL. This study had two primary aims: first, to examine whether there are differences in physical and mental HRQoL in persons with SMI, and, second, to investigate the cognitive, clinical, and functional correlates of the three QoL indicators. Participants were 48 persons with SMI who completed assessments of QoL, cognition, functional capacity, psychiatric symptomatology, and medical comorbidity. Results indicate that participants experience similar levels of physical and mental HRQoL, and these two constructs are not related to one another. Physical HRQoL is associated with less medical comorbidity, while mental HRQoL is associated with negative and depressive symptoms. Overall life satisfaction was associated with fewer psychiatric symptoms and less medical comorbidity. This study adds to the important literature defining distinct domains of QoL and supports the necessity of addressing both physical and mental health factors as they relate to recovery and well-being among persons with SMI.
Highlights
Quality of life (QoL) among persons with schizophrenia and other serious mental illnesses (SMI) has become an important outcome assessment for both research and treatment in recent years [1,2,3,4]
We found no significant difference between physical and mental health-related QoL (HRQoL), indicating that participants in this sample were as concerned with their physical health status as they were with mental health status
Note: PHC: physical health component of the SF-36, MHC: mental health component of the SF-36, BPRS-E: brief psychiatric rating scale, HAM-D: Hamilton depression rating scale, and UPSA-B: University of California San Diego performance-based skills assessment. ∗P is significant at the 0.05 level, ∗∗P is significant at the 0.01 level, and +P < 0.10
Summary
Quality of life (QoL) among persons with schizophrenia and other serious mental illnesses (SMI) has become an important outcome assessment for both research and treatment in recent years [1,2,3,4]. It remains unclear what factors best predict QoL in this population [3, 5, 6] and a significant challenge for researchers has been the varied methods used to define and measure the broad concept. Narvaez et al [3] reported that symptom reduction alone did not translate into improved life satisfaction
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