Quality of Life Inventory (QOLI®)

Help guide clients to a fuller life.

Brief yet comprehensive, the QOLI assessment yields an overall score and a profile of problems and strengths in 16 areas of life such as love, work and play. The QOLI test is a measure of positive psychology and mental health.

This assessment can help laypeople, clients and professionals in a variety of settings.

• In clinical settings, the test is will-suited for planning, evaluating and tracking medical and psychological treatment and patient progress.
• In substance abuse/chemical dependency programs, test results can help build motivation for treatment and yield a blueprint for a balanced drug-free lifestyle.
• In positive psychology, personal growth counseling, and employee assistance programs, the assessment measures assets and strengths as well as problems in a non-pathological way.
• In gerontology settings, the QOLI assessment can be used to help measure "successful aging" as defined by leaders in the field.
• In career counseling, the test can help predict future job satisfaction and productivity.
• In research and quality assurance programs, QOLI test results can be used to help measure treatment outcomes for a wide array of physical and psychological disorders.

• Because the QOLI test contains only 32 items and takes just 15 minutes to administer, it can be used to help screen for mental health and physical problems and to help quickly measure a patient's progress.
• By helping to identify "real life" issues, the test can help clinicians develop relevant treatment plans and predict future health problems.
• By providing a positive mental health picture, the assessment can help increase the likelihood that treatment will be successful.
• In an EAP setting, the assessment can help identify employees whose satisfaction with life may be low. Helping these employees may, in turn, help reduce employers' health care costs and improve workers' productivity.

Quick Facts

About the Author

Michael Frisch earned his doctorate from the University of Kansas in 1981. He is currently Director of Clinical Training in the Department of Psychology at Baylor University. His publications include a number of studies involving the assessment of social skills and quality of life and the relationship between these factors and treatment planning and efficacy.

Normative data are based on 798 nonclinical adults sampled from 12 states from the Northeast, the South, the Midwest, and the West. An attempt was made to match the 1990 U.S. Census data as closely as possible.

Profile Report (Product Number 51521)
The QOLI profile report graphically presents the overall quality of life score and a weighted satisfaction profile for the 16 areas assessed. It also provides a brief narrative description of the person's overall classification and lists areas of dissatisfaction that may need further exploration.

View a sample Profile and Progress Report.

Progress Report (Product Number 51522)
The progress report summarizes the results of up to five administrations of the QOLI assessment.

Q Local™ Software - Enables you to score assessments, report results, and store and export data on your computer.

Hand Scoring - Administer assessments on answer sheets and score them quickly yourself with an answer key.

- Allows you to score the assessments at your site.

Why should I use a nonpathologically oriented "happiness"assessment?
The QOLI assessment opens up a whole new area of assessment by broadening the criterion of "mental health" to include personal happiness and life satisfaction in addition to the absence of psychiatric symptoms. The QOLI assessment gives you a positive mental health instrument to augment other psychological assessments that focus on negative affect and symptoms.

The QOLI assessment can be used as a screening tool for mental health and physical problems. A low quality of life score is often a key symptom of psychological and physical disturbances and might also predict future health problems.

Addressing quality of life issues can also be crucial to the success of treatment. Some clients are discontent, even though their symptoms have remitted with treatment, because their quality of life has not improved. There is even some evidence that symptom reduction and improved functioning in everyday life cannot occur in psychotherapy unless the patient's quality of life is enhanced.

Finally, the QOLI assessment can help clinicians develop relevant treatment plans by focusing both client and therapist on "real world" aspects of life, like work situation, living arrangement, etc. These areas can often be changed more quickly than cognitive or psychodynamic factors can.

Can the QOLI assessment be used for outcomes measurement?
Yes, the QOLI Progress Report can be used for individual outcomes measurement for interventions alleviating either physical illness or psychological disorders.

Aggregate QOLI assessment data can be used to evaluate the outcomes of diverse therapies to determine which type works best for which patients to improve their quality of life.

The QOLI assessment can also help managed care providers objectivelydemonstrate that their services have improved a patient's quality of life. A 1992 Psychotherapy Finances article on managed care indicated that employers and payers will be tying income to providing effectiveness in three areas:

1. work functioning
2. use of medical benefits
3. improved quality of life

What if an area of life is not important to the test taker?
Areas that are rated "Not Important" are not included in QOLI score calculations.