Rod O’Connor: Measuring quality of life in health

Excerpt

As is often the case, the “quality of life” in Rod O’Connor’s title is a one-size-fits-all term for any and all patient centred or reported outcomes. This topic is dear to the hearts of most, if not all, the readers of this journal, and many will have similarly titled books on their library shelves. Running my eye along my own bookshelf, I see Fayers and Machin’s “Quality of Life: Assessment, Analysis and Interpretation”. The one thing that has always frustrated me about that otherwise excellent book is its lack of detailed referencing. O’Connor’s book makes up for that in spades; its bibliography contains over 350 references, providing a helpful summary of an enormous and diverse literature. In sections that cover material that I am familiar with, I could easily follow the summaries and found many papers that I have not yet read but am very interested to follow up. But in the sections about material that I am not familiar with, I did not gain as many insights as I would have hoped for; the explanations are too dense, the examples too few. So this new book may not be a good one for beginners; Fayers and Machin’s is the better introductory text. O’Connor does provide a well referenced summary of many of the key concepts in measuring subjective phenomena, and places them in the health context. There is some overlap in content with another well-thumbed volume on my library shelf, Streiner and Norman’s successful “Health Measurement Scales: a Practical Guide to their Development and Use”, now in its third edition. But O’Connor’s book ranges more widely, covering common content such as validity in less detail, with references to Streiner and Norman’s book and other psychometric classics by Anastasi and Nunally for further detail. In terms of price, O’Connor’s new offering comes in at about the same price as Streiner and Norman’s (also paperback) and about a third the price of Fayers and Machin’s (hardcover). The book has obviously been prepared with great care and attention to detail, and there is little risk of annoyance due to typographical errors. …