Skip Navigation



Alcohol and Alcoholism Advance Access published online on February 2, 2006
Alcohol and Alcoholism, doi:10.1093/alcalc/agl001
This Article
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
41/2/181    most recent
agl001v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by MALET, L.
Right arrow Articles by FALISSARD, B.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by MALET, L.
Right arrow Articles by FALISSARD, B.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Medical Council on Alcohol. All rights reserved
Received May 12, 2005
Revised December 28, 2005
Accepted January 4, 2006

Article

ALQOL 9 FOR MEASURING QUALITY OF LIFE IN ALCOHOL DEPENDENCE

LAURENT MALET 1 *, PIERRE-MICHEL LLORCA 2, BÉRÉNICE BERINGUIER 3, PHILIPPE LEHERT 4, and BRUNO FALISSARD 5

1 Centre Hospitalier Universitaire, Psychiatrie B, rue Montalembert BP 69, France; INSERM U669--Hôpital Cochin, Maison de Solenn, 97 Boulevard du Port-Royal, F-75679 Paris cedex 14, France
2 Centre Hospitalier Universitaire, Psychiatrie B, rue Montalembert BP 69, France
3 Cente Hospitalier Sainte-Marie, 10 avenue Franklin Roosevelt, F-63003 Clermont-Ferrand Cedex 1, France
4 Department of statistics, Faculty of Economy, FUCAM, MONS, Belgium; Faculty of medicine, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
5 INSERM U669--Hôpital Cochin, Maison de Solenn, 97 Boulevard du Port-Royal, F-75679 Paris cedex 14, France

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
LAURENT MALET, E-mail: lmalet{at}chu-clermontferrand.fr


  Abstract

Aims: Quality of life (QoL) is an important factor of outcome tracking and treatment in alcohol misuse. A 9-item QoL scale, AlQoL 9, obtained from the generic SF 36, is proposed as a measure that characterizes the QoL of alcohol-dependent patients. Our objective was to study the psychometric properties of this subscale. Methods: AlQoL 9 was evaluated in two study groups of patients with DSM-IV diagnosis of dependence: 104 inpatients, and 114 outpatients. Severity of dependence, alcohol consumption, psychiatric, and somatic comorbidities were assessed. We studied the global properties of AlQoL 9 and its structure. Results: Cronbach {alpha}-coefficients in both populations indicated good internal consistency (0.71 and 0.85). Test-retest intraclass coefficients for a 2-day interval in hospital were in the range 0.57-0.78. Principal component analysis found a unidimensional scale. This subscale has properties that are consistent with the concept of QoL in alcohol dependence, i.e. lowered QoL compared with the general population, influenced by gender, and depression. Conclusions: AlQoL 9 epitomizes QoL in alcohol-dependence. It gives a global measurement with good psychometric properties. It could be used in clinical practice as a diagnosis and management support instrument and may also be useful in research for evaluating treatment efficacy.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.