Confirming the Factor Structure of the Quality of Life Rating

The Quality of Life Rating (Gust, 1982) (QOLR) is a clinically developed 20-item self-report instrument that has been used in spinal cord and traumatic brain injury rehabilitation clinics as well as clinical mental health environments. This current study tested a five-factor model (Huebner et al., 1998) of the QOLR using the confirmatory factor analysis method. Huebner et al.’s (1998) five extracted factors were labeled as: self-esteem and well-being, interpersonal attachment, economics or basic needs, recreation/leisure, and spirituality. For the present study, 230 completed QOLR’s collected from adults at intake of an outpatient psychological services clinic in the Southwestern United States were used. The sample was 70% female. The age range was 18 to 68 with a median age of 37.5. The sample was 51.7 percent Caucasian, 30 percent Hispanic, and 13 percent African-American. The results of the present study provided support for the hypothesized model. These results also supported the generalizability of the instrument outside of the Huebner et al. (1998) college student sample. The relatively sound nature of the QOLR’s established psychometric properties, as well as the second-order factor structure used in this current study, may make this instrument and model useful in further quality of life studies. The issues of defining and measuring the quality of life construct are discussed