Quality of Life Therapy

11 Key excerpts on "Quality of Life Therapy"

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  Quality of Life

  Biopsychosocial Perspectives

  • Floriana Irtelli, Federico Durbano, Simon George Taukeni, Floriana Irtelli, Federico Durbano, Simon George Taukeni(Authors)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • IntechOpen

    (Publisher)

  Finally, we can state that in order to approach the concept of quality of life and the knowledge and care of the person in his/her complexity also means to examine the relations between these three systems simultaneously. 6. Conclusions To summarize, we can affirm that the concept of quality of life (as it is intended in the field of medicine and health psychology) refers mainly to the well-being of the individual from a physical, cultural, social, and psychological point of view, also considering the cultural context and its value and, furthermore, considering the individual’s objectives, standards, and life expectancy [25]. Several studies have therefore proposed to develop a quality of life model that would integrate objective and subjective perspectives; some authors also focused on multidimensional nature of this construct by analyzing in depth some key areas: physical well-being, emo-tional well-being, the material well-being, potential development of the subject and his/her daily activities [26, 27]. Other authors have proposed a holistic model that describes the quality of life as a dynamic process that links the individual reality with the social reality emphasizing the importance of environmental factors and personal factors, and the relationship that the person establishes with the con-straints and resources of the environment in which he/she lives [28]. We can conclude by stating that the quality of life construct refers to an indica-tor of material well-being expressed by money gain and economic resources, of psychophysical well-being of the individual, and the outcome related to the effec-tiveness of the programs implemented in support of various individuals [29]. The assessment of quality of life can be carried out according to different methodologi-cal approaches, but we have to note that making an univocal operationalization of this construct can be sometimes quite difficult for its complexity [30].

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  Treating Worker Dissatisfaction During Economic Change

  • Morley D. Glicken, Ben Robinson(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Academic Press

    (Publisher)

  Frisch (2006) and others found that most often QoL can be personally determined by any aspect of life. For example, work can be excellent, satisfying, enjoyable, necessary, or distasteful to an individual. From this perspective, the quality of an individual’s work life can go beyond mere economic or financial well-being. The goal of an ideal quality of life is related to the subjective well-being or happiness aspects of life that are particularly enjoyable and worthwhile might be found that, beyond a satisfying work life, there might be an enjoyable family life, excellent health, or the full development of one’s talents and self-expression.

  Verdugo, Schaluck, Keith, and Stancliff (2005) reported that the QoL construct has changed since its origin as a general organizing concept. It has been more recently seen from an assessment and intervention perspective. QoL has become more useful as a framework for assessing quality of life outcomes and a social construct that guides quality of life improvement strategies. Quality of life methods provide a basis for enhancing the effectiveness of other strategies. This enhancement role places additional emphasis on the need for more valid QoL assessment and intervention measures.

  QoL and Quality of Life Therapy (QOLT) represents the conceptual and practical framework used throughout this chapter (Frisch, 2006 ). This approach help explain many of the relationships between the QoL approach and involuntary job displacement during the recent economic downturn. For example, QoL measures have the potential of expressing a worker’s personal feelings and values such as health, self-esteem, happiness and other factors as being a more prominent concern related to the workplace. QOLT constitutes a way for individuals to evaluate their overall satisfaction with life within and beyond the workplace (Eid & Larson, 2008 ; Frisch, 2006

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  Quality of Life Therapy

  Applying a Life Satisfaction Approach to Positive Psychology and Cognitive Therapy

  • Michael B. Frisch(Author)
  • 2005(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  In fact, research in this area has convinced many that we need to broaden our criteria for mental health and adjustment to include personal happiness, content- ment, and a capacity for joy rather than focusing only on the negative side of mental illness and pathological symptoms (Diener & Seligman, 2004; Frisch et al., 1992; Kazdin, 1993a, 1993b, 2003; Ogles et al., 1996; Strupp, 1996). It is as if mental health professionals have excluded an entire realm of positive psychological functioning or positive mental health, which we need to include in any wholistic understanding of a person. Hans Strupp, a distinguished professor of psychology at Vanderbilt University, has argued this point for years, saying that a clients’ happiness or contentment should be the ultimate criterion to see if psychotherapy or med- ication is effective in treating a psychological distur- bance (Strupp, 1996; Strupp & Hadley, 1977). Tests of psychiatric symptoms and negative feelings simply do not give a full and complete picture of clients’ “mental status,” psychological well-being, or progress in treat- ment, according to Dr. Strupp. These findings and oth- ers from the research literature on happiness, positive psychology, and quality of life form the basis of Quality of Life Therapy. 18 CHAPTER 3 QOL Theory QOL, HAPPINESS, AND LIFE SATISFACTION AS QUALITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS Perhaps control of our consciousness, our thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations, is the greatest chal- lenge to clinical psychologists, according to Albert Bandura (1986), as well as to the QOL theory 1 that underlies QOLT. 2 With QOL theory’s emphasis on life satisfaction and subjective well-being—SWB, the researcher’s term for happiness, quality of life or QOL refers, in part, to the quality of consciousness or the extent to which human inner experience (e.g., thoughts and feelings) is positive.

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  Quality of Life and Mental Health Services

  • Keith Bridges, Dr Peter Huxley, Peter Huxley, Hadi Mohamad, Joseph Oliver(Authors)
  • 2005(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Utopia, an imaginary island with an ideal political and social system. One typology, proposed by Gerson (1976), of approaches to quality of life, seems useful. He distinguishes between the ‘individualist’ approach, where an individual’s goals are fulfilled; the ‘transcendentalist’ approach, which emphasises the community or group’s aspirations; and the ‘interactionist or phenomenological’ approach, where quality of life is focused around a series of negotiated outcomes (Dann 1984:11).

  As we have seen, ‘quality of life’ is a term, coined at a particular time in Western history, which has captured within its parameters a broad range of human concerns which have themselves, at various stages of human history, been known under other names, from eudaemonia to welfare. As the essential reality which the term is trying to capture may be disunified, an ad hoc collection of ideas, so it, itself, may be incapable of valid (i.e. internally consistent) definition. Not surprisingly, the definitions rendered to date for ‘quality of life’ are many and varied. We include a list, drawn from our reading, which is far from conclusive but which gives a sufficiently wide flavour of what people think to enable us to discuss contents.

  Some authors render definitions of life quality which are broad but inexact, offering less guidance to the possible contents of quality of life measurement. For example, Liu (1976) said: ‘There are as many quality of life definitions as there are people.’ Likewise, Torrance (1987) said: ‘Quality of life is a broad concept which incorporates all aspects of an individual’s existence.’ Alas, our own meagre efforts appear to have fallen into this category, having once defined it thus: ‘In a modern epoch, quality of life is total health and welfare, ideas which are comprehended and largely accepted by people generally’ (Oliver 1991a). Those definitions which focus on the objective well-being side of the divide sound like that offered by McCall (1976): ‘Quality of life consists in obtaining the necessary conditions for happiness in a given region or society.’ Some writers centre on subjective well-being, favouring measurement of the experience of well-being but not necessarily the conditions which determine it. ‘Quality of life means a person’s sense of well-being, satisfaction or dissatisfaction with life, or happiness or unhappiness’ (Dalkey and Rourke 1972) is one example.

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  Quality of Life and Disability

  An Approach for Community Practitioners

  • Roy Brown, Ivan Brown(Authors)
  • 2003(Publication Date)
  • Jessica Kingsley Publishers

    (Publisher)

  Quality of life is ever-changing. Quality of life can change from year to year, and even from day to day. Any number of planned and unplanned events can occur to change the quality of a person’s life. In addition, as we move through life, we have different priorities and value different things. Thus, the things that contribute to an individual’s quality of life at one stage may be quite different from those that contribute to it later on. In other words, there is also variability within each individual over time.

  What does a quality of life approach achieve?

  When we use a quality of life approach, we focus specifically on six key application principles to build upon the five essential ideas described above. The quality of life approach:

  1. Focuses attention on the processes that are most important to the person at the present time; this includes those things that the person shares with other humans and those things that are more individually valued by the person and relevant to his or her life.

  2. Works to ensure that the person is satisfied with those aspects of life that are important, and not dissatisfied with other aspects of his or her life; human beings are never fully satisfied with all aspects of their lives, and this characteristic keeps us striving for improvement; in taking a quality of life approach, we strive for feeling quite well satisfied overall, and for feeling much more satisfaction than dissatisfaction in our lives.

  3. Stresses that opportunities to improve must be within the person’s grasp.

  4. Insists that personal choice should be exercised, wherever possible, in selecting opportunities.

  5. Improves the person’s self-image.

  6. Increases levels of personal empowerment.

  Final words

  In this chapter, we have introduced you to a quality of life approach. We have learned what quality of life means, who can use this approach, and the basic ideas needed for helping people improve their lives.

  For thought and discussion

  1. Are all people entitled to lives of quality?

  2. Look back at the three-level framework again. Think of a time in your life when each of the levels was particularly important to you.

  3.

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  Assessment in Behavioral Medicine

  • Ad Vingerhoets(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  16Quality of Life Assessment Jolanda de Vries

  The focus of this chapter will be on the assessment of quality of life (QOL). According to the World Health Organisation Quality of Life group, QOL should be defined as “a person’s perception of his/her position in life within the context of the culture and value systems in which s/he lives and in relation to his/her goals, expectations, standards, and concerns. It is a broad-ranging concept incorporating, in a complex way, the person’s physical health, psychological state, level of independence, social relationships, personal beliefs, and relationship to salient features of the environment” (WHOQOL group, 1994, p. 28).

  This definition reflects the view that QOL refers to a subjective evaluation which is embedded in a cultural, social, and environmental context. Although some researchers have already noted these aspects, it is the first time that they have been incorporated into a definition. Moreover, QOL is a very broad multidimensional concept, going beyond the WHO’s definition of health which states that health is “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease of infirmity” (WHO, 1958). For this same reason, QOL cannot simply be equated with terms like functional status or health status, mental state, or well-being. As Ware (1991, p. 776) has put it: “It has become fashionable to talk about functional status and well-being as if they were synonymous with quality of life. Quality of life, however, is a much broader concept.”

  Many measures are claimed to assess QOL. However, strictly speaking, these often concern health status measures that focus on the influence of disease on a person’s physical, psychological, and social functioning. Health status measures are only subjective in the sense that they are completed by patients themselves. In contrast, QOL measures, besides being completed by patients, are subjective in the sense that patients are also asked to evaluate the aspects of QOL (e.g., “How satisfied …?”/“How bothered …?”).

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  Lung Cancer

  A Multidisciplinary Approach

  • Alison Leary(Author)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Wiley-Blackwell

    (Publisher)

  Quality of life is apparent in two contexts: authors seek either to define quality of life or to measure quality of life. This may seem a logical path to take, but it means that the literature lacks integration. For example, this fragmentation makes it difficult for a clinician to introduce quality of life assessment into practice without in-depth exploration of the two areas, unless a formulaic approach is used. This is exactly the situation at present and explains the dominance of questionnaires and quality-of -life tools in practice, particularly in the context of health economics. The definition from the Oxford English Dictionary (1995) of quality of life as ‘… a vague and ethereal entity’ serves to illustrate the difficulty in attempting to define quality of life and illustrates the difficulty also faced by the researcher in this area in trying to find that definition. When quality of life has been discussed in the literature, it has usually been in terms that vary widely from the ‘need-based’ theories of authors such as Maslow (Maslow 1954) to expressions of the value or excellence of life and the word ‘quality’ being used in an evaluative sense (Meeberg 1993). Scholars argue that this is such an enormous area of study that it is almost impossible to define quality of life (Stegbaur 1994). This was also true in application of the term quality of life.

  Quality of life is a multilevel concept reflecting macrosocietal and sociodemographic influences and also the micro concerns of individuals’ experiences, circumstances, health, social well-being, values, perceptions and psychology (Bowling et al . 2003). Quality of life became a focus for nursing practice in the 1980s and, as more definitions emerged, the concept receded (Mast 1995). It is possible that as nursing has evolved with such rapidity, many terms have become ambiguous. Quality of life is of particular interest to nurses and nurse researchers because much value is placed on the evaluation of nursing interventions and quality of life could be perceived as an outcome measure. This is demonstrated by the liberal use of the term ‘quality of life’ in the nursing literature. The Oncology Nursing Society, for example, cited ‘quality of life’ as among its top three priorities, without definition (Stetz et al . 1995).

  Incidence, survival and mortality have historically been used to map cancer pathology and success of treatment (Fraumen et al

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  The Social Workers' Toolbox

  Sustainable Multimethod Social Work

  • Herman de Mönnink(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Taylor & Francis

    (Publisher)

  Figure 2.2 ).

  2.3.1 Quality of life

  Quality of Life (QoL) has been mentioned a few times. QoL is the final objective of social work and is therefore used as a yardstick to gauge the effectiveness of social work. So what do we mean by QoL?

  Figure 2.2 PIE-Empowerment Theory: empowering person–environment interaction enhancing Quality of Life

  I will use the definition put forth by the Quality of Life Research Unit of the University of Toronto (2014) to define ‘quality of life’: ‘The degree to which a person enjoys the important possibilities of his or her life: in other words: enjoying the fulfilment of natural human needs.’ This definition of quality of life is based on that put forth by the World Health Organization (WHO).

  It is clear from this definition of QoL that even if the client experiences all manner of limitation (of a physical, social and/or mental health nature), there can be optimal quality of life if the client enjoys the possibilities he does have, that is if he is able to live with his limitations. Such opportunities include the resources at his disposal, that is food, shelter, health, love, vitality and an outlook for the future.

  How can we make ‘enjoying important opportunities’ more concrete when it comes to our professional practice as social workers? We can make the first definition of QoL concrete by operationalizing it as follows: In PIE-ET ‘quality of life’ is defined as ‘enjoying the fulfilment of one’s human needs’.

  This definition clearly links quality of life to the extent to which the client experiences fulfilment of his or her life needs. QoL will be enhanced if the aforesaid resources such as food, love and a future perspective meet the person’s needs. One can measure the Quality of Life by asking the client scale questions: how satisfied are you with your life on a scale from 0 to 10? (see also Table 1.2

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  Physical Environments and Aging

  Critical Contributions of M. Powell Lawton to Theory and Practice

  • Paul Windley, Rick Scheidt(Authors)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  A definition of quality of life may be offered here: Quality of life is the multi-dimensional evaluation, by both intrapersonal and social-normative criteria, of the person-environment system of an individual in time past, current, and anticipated. (Lawton, 1991, p. 6)

  In a series of my own research findings, there has been a strong tendency for positive emotional states to occur in older people who are more engaged with other people, leisure activities, and their environments. One of my current ideological missions is to promote the idea that a neglected route to positive mental health for older people is to find ways of enhancing such engagement. A much more difficult idea for research is whether there are other extroverted means by which people can enhance their engagement with their own goals, thoughts, or memories … ways of making one’s interiority more novel, challenging, and appealing, as perhaps in self-guided reminiscence, is a task for future clinician. [italics added] (Lawton, 2000, pp. 192-193)

  The fundamental premise of Powell Lawton’s (1991) conceptualization of “quality of life” is recognition of the breadth and depth of older adults’ lives and the inherent meanings. This conceptual model appreciates the complexity of the concept and provides a systemic approach in understanding the person, as well as emphasizes the importance of socio-psychological aspects in life beyond the traditional approaches that look at decrements from a baseline. Lawton’s (1991) quality of life conceptualization proposes four evaluative sectors of “good life”: psychological well-being, perceived quality of life, behavioral competence and objective environment. At the core of these four sectors is “self” as the integrating reality of individuals. For example, quality of life gains added dimensions in the long-term care setting as older adults become part of and subject to organizational policies, care philosophies and regulations. Issues of personal choice, interaction with staff members, dependence, self-esteem, etc., have a profound significance because for many people this will be their “residence” for the balance of their lives.

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  The Wiley Handbook of Positive Clinical Psychology

  • Alex M. Wood, Judith Johnson, Alex M. Wood, Judith Johnson(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Wiley-Blackwell

    (Publisher)

  While her Beck Depression Inventory-II was in the nonclinical or low range at post-treatment, her overall score on the Quality of Life Inventory, was also in the low range, signifying a lack of fulfillment in some highly valued areas of life; B’s QOLI test results are presented in Figure 27.1. These assessment results brought to mind David A. Clark’s (2006) rationale for adding positive psychology to traditional psychotherapies, to wit: In some respects, clinical psychology and psychiatry have exhibited a depressive thinking style in their theories, research, and treatment of psychological disorders. We have tended to focus exclusively on the negative. Our preoccupation has been the relief of suffering, the alleviation of negative emotions, the restructuring of negative cognitions and dysfunctional schemas, and the modification of problematic behavioral responses … As psychotherapists, we have ignored the “half-full” side of the equation. That is, we rarely address issues of happiness, contentment, and quality of life. At last psychologists like Ed Diener, Martin Seligman, and Michael B. Frisch have begun to readdress this imbalance in our perspective on human emotion … Treating negative mood will not automatically lead to happiness and life satisfaction in our patients. Instead a new and expanded therapeutic perspective is needed that directly addresses issues of positive affect, life satisfaction, and contentment. (Clark, 2006, p. ix, italics added) Based on this rationale, QOLT was instituted in an effort to boost B’s positive affect experience and satisfaction with life (QOLT can also be implemented concurrently with a psychotherapy and/or pharmacotherapy; see Furey (2007) and Frisch (2006) for guidelines on how to do this). B was excited and motivated by the prospect of learning ways to be happier and more enthusiastic about her life. She also was intrigued by the part of the rationale that promised a prophylactic effect from QOLT

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  Designs for Living

  A Comparative Approach to Normalisation for the New Millennium

  • Steven Carnaby(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Taylor & Francis

    (Publisher)

  One way of tackling the complexities of quality of life research is to understand its origins. Studying quality of life in the learning disability field has its foundation in many other disciplines. There are studies which look at the effect of policy on the lives of specific groups of people, using an index of measures which give an overall but implicit “sense” of their quality of life. More recent research has tried to stop avoiding the difficult question of what is meant precisely by “quality of life”, and has begun to recognise the weaknesses of earlier work which failed to provide any workable definitions.

  It is generally accepted that the root of modern research is Thomdike’s (1939) study of the quality of life in American cities; this used social indicators to assess a broad view of life in an American community. Other fields that have used quality of life when studying service delivery are gerontology (e.g. Adams 1941), head-injury (e.g. Klonoff et al 1986), and mental illness (e.g. Lehman 1983).

  Economic considerations became paramount in the last decade, as Government sought to constrain public expenditure, and health economists began to look at how they could evaluate medical procedures in terms of their monetary efficiency (Drummond 1981).

  Ethical issues were raised when approaches recommending that less financially demanding practices should receive a higher percentage of available funding in order to increase the total number of life years gained (Zaner 1986). Critics argued that such approaches assume that all life-years afford an equal level of quality of life. This failure to account for quality in any meaningful context led to the introduction of Quality of Life adjusted years (QALY’s); essentially, a year of healthy life expectancy is equivalent to ‘one’, whereas a year of unhealthy life expectancy is ‘less than one’ (Williams 1979). QALY’s are used in a similar way to the analysis of medical procedures (Drummond 1981), in that they are utilised as evidence of cost-effectiveness for specific medical interventions or techniques, as well as for determining who should be treated. Understandably, QALY’s have been criticised for being too simplistic (e.g. Loomes & McKenzie 1989) and ethically undesirable, as they focus on time rather than the life of an individual (e.g. Harris 1987). One can see how such thinking could also provide substance both for the abortion debate and for the adoption of foetal scanning.

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