A battery of instruments to assess Quality of Life (BASIQ): validation of the italian adaptation of the Quality of Life Instrument Package (QoL-IP)

Objectives Generic (G) Quality of Life (QoL) has broader implications and potentialities than Health-Related (HR) QoL. Italian tools for the assessment of G-QoL are few and present considerable limitations. The aim of the present work was to assess psychometric characteristics of the BASIQ (BAtteria di Strumenti per l’Indagine della Qualita di Vita), the Italian translation and adaptation of the Quality of Life Instrument Package (QoL-IP) of the Centre for Health Promotion, University of Toronto. The package is based on an interpretative model of QoL that integrates qualitative and quantitative, as well as subjective and objective data, but the core quality of life measure is the perception of satisfaction weighted by ratings of importance. The BASIQ is comprised of three instruments: a direct interview with the person that is scored like a questionnaire but provides considerable qualitative data, a questionnaire for proxies who know the person well (caregiver, front line healthcare operators, etc.), and a questionnaire for external assessors (general practitioner, specialist, lawyer, etc.).