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Quality of Life Research

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01-03-2010 | Brief Communication

Cross-national comparability of the WHOQOL-BREF: A measurement invariance approach

Auteurs: Peter Theuns, Joeri Hofmans, Mehrdad Mazaheri, Frederik Van Acker, Jan L. Bernheim

Gepubliceerd in: Quality of Life Research | Uitgave 2/2010

Abstract

Purpose

To evaluate whether the WHOQOL-BREF measures the QOL construct in the same way across nations.

Methods

Students from Flanders, Belgium and Iran completed the WHOQOL-BREF as part of a larger Quality of Life questionnaire. Their responses were compared using a multi-group confirmatory factor analysis.

Results

In general, the QOL construct appears rather similar in both cultures; however, participants from both countries seem to respond differently to particular items of the WHOQOL-BREF. Especially for the physical and psychological domain, this is problematic, because none of their indicators works in the same way across samples.

Conclusions

Notwithstanding some limitations of this study, it must be concluded that the WHOQOL-BREF should only be used with great caution in cross-national comparisons.

vorige artikel Psychometric evaluation of the impact of cancer (IOC-CS) scale for young adult survivors of childhood cancer

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The following constraints were applied in order to identify the model (see [11]): (1) the latent factor means are fixed to 0 in the first group, (2) the intercepts are fixed to 0 in all groups, (3) the scaling factors are fixed to one in the first group, (4) per factor, the factor loading of one item is fixed to 1 (these items are called the reference items), and (5) for each item, an equality constraint was set on the first threshold, and additionally for the reference items, the second threshold was also constrained across groups.

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Titel: Cross-national comparability of the WHOQOL-BREF: A measurement invariance approach
Auteurs: Peter Theuns
Joeri Hofmans
Mehrdad Mazaheri
Frederik Van Acker
Jan L. Bernheim
Publicatiedatum: 01-03-2010
Uitgeverij: Springer Netherlands
Gepubliceerd in: Quality of Life Research / Uitgave 2/2010
Print ISSN: 0962-9343
Elektronisch ISSN: 1573-2649
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-009-9577-9

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Abstract

Purpose

Methods

Results

Conclusions

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