Health related quality of life measurement--Euro style.

Several teams are attempting to produce generic health related quality of life measures: none, probably, as ambitious as the EuroQol group who are 'developing a standardised non-disease-specific instrument....with the capacity to generate cross-national comparisons' (EuroQol Group, EuroQol--a new facility for the measurement of health related quality of life, Health Policy, 16 (1990) 199-208). Unfortunately the instrument is flawed both conceptually and in its construction; it is unsurprising, therefore, that the response rates they obtain are so abysmal. Apart from these design faults, the main problem is the quite legitimate refusal of most normal people (respondents) to rate death on the same scale as health states.