ABSTRACT
At the time that this research began into the quality .of life of clients on the caseloads of UK social and health care agencies (Oliver 1991a), the term had only recently been applied to chronically mentally ill people. Most research until then concentrated on the ‘adverse effects of the treatment and indirect effects of the illness’ (Tantam 1988:243). As revealed in Chapter 1, the most striking work then existing in respect of the quality of life of the chronic mentally disordered had appeared in papers by Baker and Intagliata (1982) and Lehman (Lehman et al. 1982; Lehman 1983a). Stimulated by these studies, our research began as an attempt to incorporate this research into the UK context.
