Health status assessment

Dorman P, Slattery J, Farrell B et al. (1998). Qualitative comparison of the reliability of health status assessments with the EuroQol and SF-36 questionnaires after stroke. Stroke 29 63-68... 

For many pharmacists, their first encounter with the terminology quality of life was in the 1986 New England Journal of Medicine article by Croog et alJ entitled The effects of hypertensive therapy on the quality of life. The authors found that antihypertensive agents had different effects on the quality of life and that these differences can be meaningfully assessed with available psychosocial measures. Currently, the clinical community is more aware of patient-based measures and the potential uses of health status assessments. Curriculum of many schools of pharmacy now includes some information on outcomes of patient care beyond just the traditional biological measures. 

This article discusses selected milestones in the evolution of health status assessments, the health status/ quality of life conceptual framework(s), an introduction to the scientific basis and evaluation of patient health status self-assessment questions, and potential future research and application of health status measures to patient care, with special emphasis on its role in clinical pharmacy practice. 

For a more detailed discussion of the history and development of health status assessment, see Refs. [17-19]. Also, for a more exhaustive list of questionnaires, readers are directed to Spilker. ° ... 

Now that we briefly reviewed the history of some of the origins of health status assessment research and a few of the important stimuli, we proceed with a brief discussion of some of the underlying theories and assumptions. 

Advantage of Health Status Assessment Information to a Health Care Professional... 

Fig. 4 Pharmacist assessment and monitoring therapy with health status assessment information included into typical paradigm.

Lohr, K.N. Applications of health status assessment measures in clinical practice. Overview of the Third Conference on Advances in Health Status Assessment. Med. Care 1992, 30, MS1-MS14. 

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