Quality of life measures for residents of aged care facilities: a literature review

Abstract

With increases in life expectancy and increasing numbers of older people utilising residential aged care, there is a widely felt need to improve the quality of long term care for older people. One facet of quality of care being strongly advocated is the consumer perspective, in particular, the attainment of an optimum quality of life. Yet, despite the proliferation of quality of life measures, those with utility in the residential aged care setting are quite limited.
This paper explores issues of quality of life measurement with particular emphasis on the availability and appropriateness of tools for use in the residential aged care setting.
Residents of aged care facilities tend to be significantly frailer than the general population and are living in a distinctly different environment. The majority of quality of life measures available either do not measure issues relevant to residents of aged care facilities, such as control and autonomy, or they measure areas that are not appropriate, such as work status. Further, an over-emphasis on health and physical function and a lack of resident-centred measures may produce a more negative picture of quality of life, than actually experienced by this group of people.
This paper argues for the utilisation of a standard quality of life research instrument that is resident-focused and includes the many facets and domains that comprise quality of life for the residential aged care recipient. Data from such a tool may assist policy makers in their decision-making, if used on a national basis.