Reviews a wide range of popular measures of functional disability and health status, as well as broader measures of health, such as those concerned with psychological well-being (for example anxiety and depression), emotional well-being and social networks, support and loneliness.

These Guidelines represent the first attempt to provide international recommendations on collecting, publishing, and analysing subjective well-being data.

An invaluable resource for health professionals and students engaged in research, this thoroughly updated edition provides a guide to the major measures of health and functioning. Measures of subjective health, well-being and quality of life are introduced along with analysis of their validity and reliability and the evidence for using each one. Throughout the book each measure is explained with a summary of how each one is scored and used, making this a one-stop guide to understanding health measurements, and the basic concepts behind measuring health, quality of life and well-being. • A new look and feel makes measures and scales easier to locate • Further research and evidence provides a greater critique of the measures • Useful source information to help you access each measure with permission • The addition of new scales include the Warwick-Edinburgh Wellbeing Scale, the Older People’s Quality of Life Scale and the Short-Form McGill Pain Questionnaire • Expanded material on functional independence and functional assessment measures Written by a renowned expert in health research, Measuring Health, 4th edition is essential reading for researchers and upper level undergraduates and postgraduates in health services research, health studies, health sciences, public health and social sciences. "The world of measurement scales, which ones to use and for what purpose, is a complex one even for experienced qualitative researchers. It is easy for less experienced researchers to lose their way. Ann Bowling's book provides an up to date and coherent guide and assessment of measurement tools which is comprehensible and well organised." Virginia Berridge, Professor of History and Director, Centre for History in Public Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK "In her latest edition of Measuring Health: A Review of Subjective Health, Well-Being and Quality of Life Measurement Scales, Professor Ann Bowling has, once again, provided us with an essential for our bookshelves. It is a vital resource for anyone investigating health and well-being – whether novice student researcher or experienced academic. Written in an accessible, easy to use style, we are initially taken through the importance of measuring and understanding lay people’s experiences of their physical and social health. The mechanics and challenges of measurement of subjective health are then described. Later chapters include handy definitions of relevant concepts and detailed descriptions of specific scales – both familiar and relatively new ones – including psychometric testing and use. This text is packed with useful information and can be used both as a resource for an overall understanding of measuring health and well-being or for selecting specific patient-based health scales for research projects." Dr. Nan Greenwood, Reader in Health and Social Care Service Research, St George's University of London and Kingston University, UK

Subjective well-being refers to how people experience and evaluate their lives and specific domains and activities in their lives. This information has already proven valuable to researchers, who have produced insights about the emotional states and experiences of people belonging to different groups, engaged in different activities, at different points in the life course, and involved in different family and community structures. Research has also revealed relationships between people's self-reported, subjectively assessed states and their behavior and decisions. Research on subjective well-being has been ongoing for decades, providing new information about the human condition. During the past decade, interest in the topic among policy makers, national statistical offices, academic researchers, the media, and the public has increased markedly because of its potential for shedding light on the economic, social, and health conditions of populations and for informing policy decisions across these domains. Subjective Well-Being: Measuring Happiness, Suffering, and Other Dimensions of Experience explores the use of this measure in population surveys. This report reviews the current state of research and evaluates methods for the measurement. In this report, a range of potential experienced well-being data applications are cited, from cost-benefit studies of health care delivery to commuting and transportation planning, environmental valuation, and outdoor recreation resource monitoring, and even to assessment of end-of-life treatment options. Subjective Well-Being finds that, whether used to assess the consequence of people's situations and policies that might affect them or to explore determinants of outcomes, contextual and covariate data are needed alongside the subjective well-being measures. This report offers guidance about adopting subjective well-being measures in official government surveys to inform social and economic policies and considers whether research has advanced to a point which warrants the federal government collecting data that allow aspects of the population's subjective well-being to be tracked and associated with changing conditions.

This book offers a comprehensive guide to measures of health and is an essential reference resource for all health professionals and students.

Worldwide economic constraints on health care systems have highlighted the importance of evidence-based medicine and evidence-based health policy. The resulting clinical trials and health services research studies require instruments to monitor the outcomes of care and the output of the health system. However, the over-abundance of competing measurement scales can make choosing a measure difficult at best. Measuring Health provides in-depth reviews of over 100 of the leading health measurement tools and serves as a guide for choosing among them.LNow in its third edition, this book provides a critical overview of the field of health measurement, with a technical introduction and discussion of the history and future directions for the field. This latest edition updates the information on each of the measures previously reviewed, and includes a complete new chapter on anxiety measurement to accompany the one on depression. It has also added new instruments to those previously reviewed in each of the chapters in the book.LChapters cover measurements of physical disability, social health, psychological well-being, anxiety, depression, mental status testing, pain, general health status and quality of life. Each chapter presents a tabular comparison of the quality of the instruments reviewed, followed by a detailed description of each method, covering its purpose and conceptual basis, its reliability and validity and, where possible, shows a copy of the actual scale. To ensure accuracy of the information, each review has been approved by the original author of each instrument or by an acknowledged expert.

A new edition of this practical guide for clinicians and researchers who wish to develop tools to measure subjective states, attitudes, or non-tangible outcomes in their patients, ideal for those who have no knowledge of statistics.