Developing an Item Bank to Measure Economic Quality of Life for Individuals With Disabilities

Early definitions of quality of life (QOL) emphasized an individual’s or country’s standard of living, wealth, comfort, and material goods. The economic burden of disability requires us to question why perceived economic factors are not conceptualized as part of HRQOL. Economic barriers to health treatment, accessible housing, transportation, and assistive technology are critical to HRQOL.

• 1
  Confirmatory factor analysis showed acceptable fit indices (comparative fit index=. 939, root mean square error of approximation=.089) for the 37 items.
• 2
  Rasch analysis of the remaining 28 items yielded a person reliability of .92, suggesting that these items discriminate about 4 economic QOL levels.
• 3
  We developed a 28-item bank that measures economic aspects of QOL.