ABSTRACT
Since the 1980s, there has been a growing recognition among clinicians, policy makers, and researchers that the evaluation of medical care effectiveness should expand beyond the traditional standards of mortality and morbidity. Medical care also should improve the patient’s health-related quality of life (Lohr, 1992). Generally speaking, health-related quality of life (also referred to as health status) represents the patient’s perceptions of physical and emotional well-being, overall health, and health-related limitations in daily activities (e.g., with work or family). To date, most of the research has focused on the creation and validation of instruments measuring health status and on how these measures can be used to assess the status of patients suffering from chronic diseases (Kaplan, 1987; Rost, Flavin, Cole, & McGill, 1991; Wasson et al., 1990) or receiving certain medical treatments (e.g., type of surgery, drug; Fowler et al., 1988; Kiebert, de Haes, & van de Velde, 1991). Interestingly, although improvement in the patient’s health status is considered an important medical objective, there is very little research examining how issues related to health-related quality of life are actually discussed and managed during the consultation itself.
