Evidence map›Paper›PMID 21725867›Full record

ArticleQuality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation2012

Can quality or quality-of-life be defined?

Ivan Barofsky

Abstract read
PubMed Publisher
In one paragraph

Article in Quality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
21citing papers in PubMed, 1 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

21 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.

  1. Pooled it
  2. Article
  3. Article
  4. Observational
  5. South African speech-language therapists' and audiologists' professional quality of life.The South African journal of communication disorders = Die Suid-Afrikaanse tydskrif vir Kommunikasieafwykings · 2024
    Article
  6. Article
  7. Omega · 2023
    Article
  8. Article
  9. Article
  10. Article
  11. Disabled life expectancy with and without stroke: a 10-year Japanese prospective cohort study.Quality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation · 2019
    Article
  12. Review
  13. Article
  14. Review
  15. Article
  16. Quality of life in aphasic patients 1 year after a first stroke.Quality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation · 2017
    Article
  17. Article
  18. Reflective, causal, and composite indicators of quality of life: A conceptual or an empirical distinction?Quality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation · 2015
    Article
  19. Article
  20. How to measure quality of life in shared-housing arrangements? A comparison of dementia-specific instruments.Quality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation · 2014
    Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

1 author.

Ivan BarofskyThe Quality of Life Institute, East Sandwich, MA 02537, USA. ibarofsky@comcast.net

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to examine the oft-heard concern that quality or quality-of-life cannot be defined. This concern persists today, even in the presence of countless studies that claim to be assessing quality or quality-of-life. There is obviously a disconnect here that warrants some attention, if not explanation. In this study, I summarize the extent of this disconnect and offer a number of potential explanations of why this situation exists. I review the role that operational definitions, statistical and empirical models, and content-specific definitions play in defining quality and/or quality-of-life. I conclude that none of these approaches provide a comprehensive definition of quality or quality-of-life. In its stead, I will argue that quality or quality-of-life represents a distinctive pattern of thinking. I establish this pattern by examining the cognitive-linguistic basis of these definitions and argue that when this is done it will be possible to identify an universal cognitive (hybrid) construct that describes how a person thinks about all types of qualitative assessments. The implication of this is that for a study to claim that it is defining or assessing quality or quality-of-life, it will first have to demonstrate the presence of the elements of this hybrid construct.

Indexed as

Health StatusQuality of LifeFemaleHumansMaleSurveys and QuestionnairesTerminology as Topic

Identifiers

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.