World Health Organization defines Quality Of Life as ‘individuals’ perceptions of their position in life in the context of the culture and value systems in which they live and in relation to their goals, standards, expectations and concerns”.
Quality Of Life depicts the difference i.e. the gap between the hopes and expectations of a person and their present experience. It is human nature to adapt to life in circumstances in way that will adjust our expectation to lie within the realm of what the individual perceives to be possible. This enables people who have difficult life circumstances to maintain a reasonable Quality Of Life.
Quality Of Life is the result of the interactions amongst our social, economic, environmental and health related conditions. It affects us as humans in social as well as our overall development. In quality of life research, one often distinguishes between the subjective and objective quality of Life. These terms can be explained as:
• Subjective quality of life is about feeling good and being satisfied with things in general.
• Objective quality of life is about fulfilling the societal and cultural demands for material wealth, social status and physical well-being.
World Health Organization has defined many important domains for assessing ‘Quality Of Life’ of patients and some of them are as follows
1. Physical
2. Psychological
3. Level of Independence
4. Social Relationships
5. Environmental Domain
6. Spirituality
7. Religion
8. Personal Beliefs
9. Economical
10. Others
These studies are mostly used as indicators of improvement. Such studies are usually conducted as secondary objective along with major intervention to assess the prognosis or similar indicators of health.