Fixed and dynamic health-related quality of life measurements

Abstract

Measuring population health is important to evaluate the impact of interventions, to monitor the changes in health status, and to predict the need for health care. A number of tools have been developed to measure quality of life and health-related quality of life. According with the current taxonomy, the questionnaires may be classified as generic or specific, multidimensional or global. Recently, advances in the field of health outcome assessment have resulted in a new generation of approaches and measures that are based on a novel approach called dynamic health assessment. Through this approach, subjects or patients answer only those questions relevant to their evaluation, in contrast to the fixed approach in which the number of questions is a priori determined. The dynamic headache impact test (HIT) that evaluates several dimensions such as ability to function on the job, at school, and in social situations, is presented and its value with respect to other fixed migraine-specific questionnaires is discussed.