Exploring older people’s understanding of the QOL-ACC, a new preference-based quality-of-life measure, for quality assessment and economic evaluation in aged care: the impact of cognitive impairment and dementia

Abstract

Abstract Background Quality-of-life is an essential outcome for quality assessment and economic evaluation in health and social care. The-Quality-of-Life – Aged Care Consumers (QOL-ACC) is a new preference-based quality-of-life measure, psychometrically validated with older people in aged care. More evidence is needed to inform the self-report reliability of the QOL-ACC in older people with varying levels of cognitive impairment and dementia. Methods A think-aloud protocol was developed and applied with older residents. The Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) was applied to assign participants to no cognitive impairment (NCI - MMSE score ≥ 27) and cognitive impairment (MMCI - MMSE score 17. Future research is needed to assess the generalisability of these findings to other preference-based quality of life instruments and for older people in other care settings including health systems.

Keywords

• Aged care
• Think-aloud
• Cognitive impairment
• Self-report