Quality of Life Index, Spinal Cord Injury Version

The QLI was developed to measure quality of life in various populations by measuring both satisfaction with aspects of quality of life and importance of those aspects of quality of life. The QLI-SCI was developed to measure quality of life specifically in people with spinal cord injury.

Link to Instrument

Cost

Cost Description

Free for use in non-profit research or non-profit clinical practice.
Contact author at http://www.uic.edu/orgs/qli for other use.

Diagnosis/Conditions

• Spinal Cord Injury

Populations

Key Descriptions

• 32 items (generic Quality of Life Index) to 37 items (QLI-SCI).
• Each item is rated on a scale of 1 (least satisfied/important) to 6 (most satisfied/important).
• 5 scores of 0-30 (0 = less satisfied, 30 = most satisfied) are calculated:
  1) Total Quality of Life score
  2) Health and Functioning Subscale
  3) Social and Economic Subscale
  4) Psychological/Spiritual Subscale
  5) Family Subscale
• QLI-SCI may be administered by interview or by self-report.
  
• Calculation of score weighs satisfaction scores according to level of importance assigned to each item.
• Administration and scoring instructions can be found at: http://www.uic.edu/orgs/qli/questionaires/pdf/spinalcordinjuryversionIII/scoring.pdf

Number of Items

Time to Administer

Additional time required for scoring

Required Training

Age Ranges

Instrument Reviewers

Initially reviewed by Rachel Tappan, PT, NCS, Eileen Tseng, PT, DPT, NCS, and the SCI EDGE task force of the Neurology Section of the APTA in 5/2012

ICF Domain

Professional Association Recommendation

Recommendations for use of the instrument from the Neurology Section of the American Physical Therapy Association’s Multiple Sclerosis Taskforce (MSEDGE), Parkinson’s Taskforce (PD EDGE), Spinal Cord Injury Taskforce (PD EDGE), Stroke Taskforce (StrokEDGE), Traumatic Brain Injury Taskforce (TBI EDGE), and Vestibular Taskforce (Vestibular EDGE) are listed below. These recommendations were developed by a panel of research and clinical experts using a modified Delphi process.

Abbreviations:

LS / UR

Reasonable to use, but limited study in target group / Unable to Recommend

Recommendations for use based on acuity level of the patient:

Acute

Subacute

(CVA 2 to 6 months)

(SCI 3 to 6 months)

Chronic

(> 6 months)

SCI EDGE

Recommendations based on SCI AIS Classification:

AIS A/B

AIS C/D

SCI EDGE

Recommendations for entry-level physical therapy education and use in research:

Students should learn to administer this tool? (Y/N)

Students should be exposed to tool? (Y/N)

Appropriate for use in intervention research studies? (Y/N)

Is additional research warranted for this tool (Y/N)

SCI EDGE

Considerations

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Non-Specific Patient Population

Test/Retest Reliability

Healthy Subjects:

(Ferrans & Powers, 1985; n = 88; mean age = 33.1(6.73); nursing graduate students)

• Excellent test-retest correlations of 0.87 on the generic version of the QLI

Internal Consistency

Healthy Subjects:

(Ferrans & Powers, 1985)

• Excellent internal consistency for the generic version of the QLI (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.93)

Criterion Validity (Predictive/Concurrent)

Healthy Subjects:

(Ferrans & Powers, 1985)

• Excellent correlation between QLI (generic version) scores and generic life satisfaction question/rating (r = 0.75)

Content Validity

Healthy Subjects:

(Ferrans & Powers, 1985)

• The generic version of the QLI was developed based on literature review of dimensions of quality of life.

Spinal Injuries

Construct Validity

Chronic SCI:

(May & Warren, 2002; n = 98; mean age = 45.2 years; mean time post-SCI = 15.5 years; cervical injury = 56.1%, thoracic/lumbar injury = 43.9%)

• Excellent correlation between QLI-SCI and Reintegration to Normal Living Index (r = -0.654) and Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale (r = 0.609)

(May & Warren, 2002)

• Poor correlation between QLI-SCI and ASIA motor score (r = 0.058) and Functional Independence Measure (r = 0.202)

Face Validity

Chronic SCI:

(May & Warren, 2001; n = 11; mean age = 33.1 years; mean time post-SCI = 10.5 years (range = 1.6-26.8 years); cervical injury = 8, thoracic/lumbar injury = 3)

• Revised/current version items and domains/subscales were validated by interview to determine items needing modification from the original version of the QLI-SCI

Bibliography

Ferrans, C. E., & Powers, M. J. (1985). Quality of life index: development and psychometric properties. [Comparative Study]. ANS. Advances in Nursing Science, 8(1), 15-24. Find it on Pubmed

May, L. A., & Warren, S. (2001). Measuring quality of life of persons with spinal cord injury: substantive and structural validation. Qual Life Res, 10(11789551), 503-515. Find it on Pubmed

May, L. A., & Warren, S. (2002). Measuring quality of life of persons with spinal cord injury: external and structural validity. Spinal Cord, 40(12080462), 341-350. Find it on Pubmed

More Instruments Like This

We have reviewed more than 500 instruments for use with a number of diagnoses including stroke, spinal cord injury and traumatic brain injury among several others.