ABSTRACT
Increasingly, researchers, clinicians, and policymakers are recognizing that the measures traditionally used to assess the efficacy and effectiveness of medical treatment, such as physiologic function and mortality, do not adequately reflect the ways many people monitor and evaluate their health. Because of work in the social and clinical sciences, there is an emerging consensus that it is more appropriate to adopt a broader and more comprehensive focus on health-related quality of life (HQL; Bombardier et al., 1986; Canadian Erythropoietin Study Group [CESG], 1990; Cleary, Epstein et al., 1991; Croog et al., 1986; McDowell & Newell, 1987; Thier, 1992).
