Recovering Quality of Life (ReQoL): a new generic self-reported outcome measure for use with people experiencing mental health difficulties†

Outcome measures for mental health services need to adopt a service-user recovery focus.

To develop and validate a 10- and 20-item self-report recovery-focused quality of life outcome measure named Recovering Quality of Life (ReQoL).

Qualitative methods for item development and initial testing, and quantitative methods for item reduction and scale construction were used. Data from >6500 service users were factor analysed and item response theory models employed to inform item selection. The measures were tested for reliability, validity and responsiveness.

ReQoL-10 and ReQoL-20 contain positively and negatively worded items covering seven themes: activity, hope, belonging and relationships, self-perception, well-being, autonomy, and physical health. Both versions achieved acceptable internal consistency, test–retest reliability (>0.85), known-group differences, convergence with related measures, and were responsive over time (standardised response mean (SRM) > 0.4). They performed marginally better than the Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale and markedly better than the EQ-5D.

Both versions are appropriate for measuring service-user recovery-focused quality of life outcomes.

M.B. and J.Co. were members of the research group that developed the Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation (CORE) outcome measures.