World Health Organization Quality of Life Scale - WHOQOL-BREF

Technical Manual

Script Author: Katja Borchert, Ph.D. (katjab@millisecond.com), Millisecond

Created: January 16, 2016

Last Modified: January 01, 2023 by K. Borchert (katjab@millisecond.com), Millisecond

Script Copyright © Millisecond Software, LLC

Background

This script implements the (US English Version) of World Health Organization Quality of Life scale (an abbreviated generic Quality of Life Scale developed through the World Health Organization)

The instrument (US English Version) can be downloaded from: https://depts.washington.edu/seaqol/WHOQOL-BREF

Duration

3 minutes

Overview

self-administered questionnaire with 26 5-point Likert questions

Instructions

https://depts.washington.edu/seaqol/WHOQOL-BREF

"This assessment asks how you feel about your quality of life, health, or other areas of your life. Please answer all the
questions. If you are unsure about which response to give to a question, please choose the one that appears most
appropriate. This can often be your first response.
Please keep in mind your standards, hopes, pleasures and concerns. We ask that you think about your life in the last
two* weeks."

•to change the instructions to the "last 4 weeks", change instructions under section SURVEYPAGES

Scoring

26 questions, questions 3, 4, 26 automatically reversed scored

SCORING
scoring of the questions follows the guidelines posted on:
https://depts.washington.edu/seaqol/docs/Wq_bref.txt

Summary Data

File Name: whoqol_bref_summary.iqdat' (Inquisit Lab: one data file per participant)

Data Fields

NameDescription
inquisit.version Inquisit version number
computer.platform Device platform: win | mac |ios | android
startDate Date the session was run
startTime Time the session was run
subjectId Participant ID
groupId Group number
sessionId Session number
elapsedTime Session duration in ms
completed 0 = Test was not completed
1 = Test was completed
Raw Scores
domain1Raw Calculates the raw score for Domain1 (PHYSICAL) by adding the responses to the Domain 1 questions
(reversed items are automatically reversed scored)
if 1 item is missing: the score gets replaced with the mean of the remaining 6 scores
if more than 1 item is missing: no raw score is calculated
Range: 7-35
domain2Raw Calculates the raw score for Domain2 (PSYCHOLOGICAL) by adding the responses to the Domain 2 questions
(reversed items are automatically reversed scored)
No raw score is calculated if not all questions are answered
Range: 6-30
domain3Raw Calculates the raw score for Domain3 (SOCIAL RELATIONSHIP) by adding the responses to the Domain 3 questions
(reversed items are automatically reversed scored)
No raw score is calculated if not all questions are answered
Range: 3-15
domain4Raw Calculates the raw score for Domain4 (ENVIRONMENT) by adding the responses to the Domain 4 questions
(reversed items are automatically reversed scored)
if 1 item is missing: the score gets replaced with the mean of the remaining 7 scores
if more than 1 item is missing: no raw score is calculated
Range: 8-40
Transformed Scores
domain1TS100 Transformed score for Domain 1 (PHYSICAL) on the scale 0-100
((Raw Score - 7)/28) * 100
=> lowest score (7) gets transformed to 0
=> highest score (35) gets transformed to 100
domain2TS100 Transformed score for Domain 2 (PSYCHOLOGICAL) on the scale 0-100
((Raw Score - 6)/24) * 100
=> lowest score (6) gets transformed to 0
=> highest score (30) gets transformed to 100
domain3TS100 Transformed score for Domain 3 (SOCIAL RELATIONSHIP) on the scale 0-100
((Raw Score - 3)/12) * 100
=> lowest score (3) gets transformed to 0
=> highest score (15) gets transformed to 100
domain4TS100 Transformed score for Domain 4 (ENVIRONMENT) on the scale 0-100
((Raw Score - 8)/32) * 100
=> lowest score (8) gets transformed to 0
=> highest score (40) gets transformed to 100
countValid1-
countValid4 Store the number of questions that were answered for domain1-domain4

Raw Data

File Name: whoqol_bref.iqdat

Data Fields

NameDescription
date Date the session was run
time Time the session was run
subject, group, session With the current subject/groupnumber/session id
build Inquisit version number
q*_response Response given (in assigned values)
Scale: 1 (most negative response) - 5 (most positive response) - wording depends on question
R = automatically reversed coded questions (here: q3R, q4R, q26R)
q*_latency How much time (in ms) the participant spent on the surveyPage with this particular
question (the last time this particular surveyPage was visited)