The psychology literature has many questionnaires and scales that purport to measure quality of life. They each emphasize different domains of life in which a person could experience varying degrees of success/failure and satisfaction/dissatisfaction. The examples are legion.
To name just a few: physical health; mental health; daily stress level; access to adequate healthcare; relationships with family, friends, and social networks; housing; environmental conditions such as safety, access to public transportation, work, and grocery shopping; socio-economic position including financial security, material possessions, and comforts; hobbies, recreation, and fun; presence or absence of discrimination, racism, and all other isms acting as obstacles to fulfillment and self-actualization; level of interest; sense of meaning and purpose; and living in a peaceful or war-torn area.
What is quality of life? It has been defined differently by people with different viewpoints and values. I define it as subjective satisfaction with one’s life and general situation. When working with clients I use a brief screen with very broad categories. I ask if their lives are miserable, tolerable, good, pretty good or fantastic. This gives them plenty of room to identify what’s working or not working; what is present vs. what is missing; and what is or is not good, pleasant, and rewarding.
The measure is meant to be as open as possible so the client’s deep unconscious sense of her quality of life can rapidly rise to the surface without censoring instead of having to consciously think about and rate specific listed domains. It helps the client to get in touch with the overwhelming theme of her life as she experiences it. For some people it’s fear, anxiety, emptiness; numbness; lack of social connection and support; loneliness, sadness, frustration or a sense of not belonging, not mattering or never succeeding. For others there is self-esteem, self-efficacy, healthy self-pride, gladness; gratitude; and a sense of being lucky, fortunate or blessed. And then there is the majority of people with mixed themes.
Whatever category my client chooses from miserable to fantastic, I ask each one what could make her life better than it is now and move her up a rung in the direction of a higher category. This question is taken from Solution Focused Brief Therapy approach. It helps the client to strategize one or more specific, concrete, and feasible baby steps she could take to feel better about her life in the immediate future.
These categories are not objective measures. They are designed solely to get clients to reflect on and share the overall quality of their lives summed up in a single word. Therapy is for unpacking the word. Why did the client choose it? What makes the client’s life merely tolerable or good enough but not fantastic? It is for the client to say, not for the therapist to judge. These simple categories work because they can unlock memories, stories, narratives, and specific examples that are important to the client and may act as guideposts for how and why she interprets her quality of life in a particular way.
You are most welcome to use my categories or invent your own and see what happens when you bring them up with your clients. If they prove helpful, then great. If not, toss them.