Evaluating quality of life of depressed patients in ambulatory care treatment
Dazord, A.; Noël, F.
L'Encephale 22(4): 247-254
1996
ISSN/ISBN: 0013-7006 PMID: 8940631 Document Number: 456580
This study concerns 1257 depressed outpatients, whose quality of life was evaluated before the beginning of a fluvoxamin treatment and six weeks later. We used the "Subjective Quality of Life Profile", questionnaire which has been previously validated in somatic diseases. The validation performed with these depressed patients appears to be quite satisfactory. The results provide a good description of the patients before the treatment: they seem to be indifferent to most domains by their health which they describe as very unsatisfactory. Contrasting with these results, patients' expectations appear to be very important in most domains, and the greater these initial expectations the poorer the evolution of their quality of life. After six weeks the patients' improvement in their quality of life is quite obvious especially in the somatic area. Another interesting finding concerns the high initial level of patients' expectations as compared with patients having somatic diseases. The higher these expectations, the poorer the outcome. It thus appears that a very sensitive self-questionnaire dealing with patients' quality of life in depression is available.