Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T06:17:48.533Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Predicting quality of life outcomes as a guide for decision-making: the challenge of hitting a moving target

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 January 2023

FD McMillan
FD McMillan*
Affiliation:
VCA Miller Animal Hospital, 8807 Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles CA 90069, USA
*
Correspondence: [email protected]
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

In animal care, when current decisions are made to maximise long-term quality of life (QoL), a key necessity is being able to make accurate predictions about how current choices will affect the animal's future QoL. However, in the procession of any individual's life, many factors that influence QoL change — some are foreseeable, many are not. Moreover, QoL has no fixed anchor points; it is dynamic, mutable, with a shifting frame of reference over time. In addition to actual changes in QoL over time, numerous factors have been identified that influence one's ability to adopt the mindset of the individual at a later point in time — for one's self as well as that of others. It has been shown that in people, across a wide range of health conditions, individuals with illness or disability typically report greater happiness and QoL than do healthy people envisioning themselves in similar circumstances (‘the disability paradox‘). Difficulties in QoL outcome prediction fall into two categories: (1) predictions made with the wrong mindset, in which there is a mismatch between the mindset of the assessor/predictor and that of the assessee/experiencer; and (2) predictions made on the basis of unforeseen or incorrectly estimated psychological changes in the assessee/experiencer.

Keywords

adaptationanimal welfaredisability paradoxhappiness set-pointquality of lifescale recalibration
Type
Research Article
Information
Animal Welfare , Volume 16 , Issue S1: Quality of Life: the heart of the matter: Proceedings of the UFAW/BVA Ethics Committee International Symposium, The Royal Society, London, 13-14 September 2006. , May 2007 , pp. 135 - 142
Copyright
© 2007 Universities Federation for Animal Welfare

References

Ahmedzai, SH 2006 Quantifying the indefinable — progress in measuring quality of life in people. (Abstract.) UFAW/BVA Symposium ‘Quality of life: the heart of the matter’, 13–14 Sept, London, UK. Universities Federation for Animal Welfare: Wheathampstead, UKGoogle Scholar
Anonymous 1998 Dog's best friend. People, 24 Aug: 80Google Scholar
Argyle, M 2001 The Psychology of Happiness (2nd Edition). Taylor & Francis: New York, USAGoogle Scholar
Bauer, M, Glickman, L, Toombs, J, Golden, S and Skowronek, C 1992 Follow-up study of owner attitudes toward home care of paraplegic dogs. Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association 200: 1809–1816Google ScholarPubMed
Bernhard, J, Lowy, A, Mathys, N, Herrmann, R and Hürny, C 2004 Health related quality of life: a changing construct? Quality of Life Research 13: 1187–1197CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Birnbacher, D 1999 Quality of life — evaluation or description? Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 2: 25–36CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Carberry, CA and Harvey, HJ 1997 Owner satisfaction with limb amputation in dogs and cats. Journal of the American Animal Hospital Association 23: 227–232Google Scholar
Chester, Z and Clark, WT 1988 Coping with blindness: a survey of 50 blind dogs. Veterinary Record 123: 668–671Google ScholarPubMed
Dawkins, MS 2006 Quality of life, good welfare and the animal's point of view. (Abstract.) UFAW/BVA Symposium ‘Quality of life: the heart of the matter’, 13–14 Sept, London, UK. Universities Federation for Animal Welfare: Wheathampstead, UKGoogle Scholar
de Boer, AGEM, van Lanschot, JJB, Stalmeier, PFM, van Sandick, JW, Hulscher, JB, de Haes, JC and Sprangers, MA 2004 Is a single-item visual analogue scale as valid, reliable and responsive as multi-item scales in measuring quality of life? Quality of Life Research 13: 311–320CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
DeLisa, JA 2002 Quality of life for individuals with SCI: let's keep up the good work. Journal of Spinal Cord Medicine 25: 1CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Diener, E and Larson, RJ 1984 Temporal stability and cross-situational consistency of affective, behavioral, and cognitive responses. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 47: 871–883CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Diener, E and Lucas, RE 2000 Subjective emotional well-being. In: Lewis, M and Haviland-Jones, JM (eds) Handbook of Emotions (2nd Edition) pp 325–337. The Guilford Press: New York, USAGoogle Scholar
Dodman, N 1997 The Cat who Cried for Help: Attitudes, Emotions, and the Psychology of Cats. Bantam Books: New York, USAGoogle Scholar
Duggan, C and Lysack, C 2001 How individuals interpret changes in quality of life following traumatic spinal cord injury. Journal of Spinal Cord Medicine 24 (Suppl 1): S34Google Scholar
Gilbert, D 2006 Stumbling on Happiness. Knopf: New York, USAGoogle Scholar
Hammell, KW 2004 Exploring quality of life following high spinal cord injury: a review and critique. Spinal Cord 42: 491–502Google ScholarPubMed
Hatton, C 1998 Whose quality of life is it anyway? Some problems with the emerging quality of life consensus. Mental Retardation 36: 104–1152.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Heinonen, H, Aro, AR, Aalto, A-M and Uutela, A 2004 Is the evaluation of the global quality of life determined by emotional status? Quality of Life Research 13: 1347–1356Google ScholarPubMed
Kahneman, D 1999 Objective happiness. In: Kahneman, D, Diener, E and Schwarz, N (eds) Well-Being: The Foundations of Hedonic Psychology pp 3–25. Russell Sage Foundation: New York, USAGoogle Scholar
Lacey, HP, Smith, DM and Ubel, PA 2006 Hope I die before I get old: mispredicting happiness across the adult lifespan. Journal of Happiness Studies 7: 167–182CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leplege, A and Hunt, S 1997 The problem of quality of life in medicine. Journal of the American Medical Association 278: 47–50CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lowy, A and Bernhard, J 2004 Quantitative assessment of changes in patients' constructs of quality of life: an application of multilevel models. Quality of Life Research 13: 1177–1185CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lykken, D 1999 Happiness. Golden Books: New York, USAGoogle Scholar
McMillan, FD 2003 Maximizing quality of life in ill animals. Journal of the American Animal Hospital Association 39: 227–235Google ScholarPubMed
McMillan, FD 2005 Do animals experience true happiness? In: McMillan FD (ed) Mental Health and Well-Being in Animals pp 221–233. Blackwell Publishing: Ames, Iowa, USACrossRefGoogle Scholar
McMillan, FD and Lance, K 2004 Unlocking the Animal Mind. Emmaus: Rodale, Pennsylvania, USAGoogle Scholar
Myers, DG 1992 The Pursuit of Happiness. Avon Books: New York, USAGoogle Scholar
Overall, KL 1997 Clinical Behavioral Medicine for Small Animals. Mosby: St Louis, USAGoogle Scholar
Overall, KL 2002 Treating depression in a cat after it loses a companion. Veterinary Medicine 97: 508–510Google Scholar
Overall, KL 2004 When cats grieve. Cat Fancy, May: 39-41Google Scholar
Schkade, DA and Kahneman, D 1999 Does living in California make people happy? A focusing illusion in judgments of life satisfaction. Psychological Science 9: 340–346CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwartz, C and Sprangers, M 1999 Methodological approaches for assessing response shift in longitudinal health-related quality-of-life research. Social Science and Medicine 48: 1531–1548CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sprangers, M and Schwartz, C 1999 Integrating response shift into health-related quality of life research: a theoretical model. Social Science and Medicine 48: 1507–1515CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Steptoe, A and Wardle, J 2005 Positive affect and biological function in everyday life. Neurobiology of Aging 26 (Suppl): S108-S112CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stewart, AL, Teno, J, Patrick, DL and Lynn, J 1999 The concept of quality of life of dying persons in the context of health care. Journal of Pain and Symptom Management 17: 93–108Google ScholarPubMed
Suh, EM, Diener, E and Fujita, F 1996 Events and subjective well-being: only recent events matter. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 70: 1091–1102CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ubel, PA, Loewenstein, G, Schwarz, N and Smith, D 2005 Misimagining the unimaginable: the disability paradox and health care decision making. Health Psychology 24 (Suppl 4): S57-S62CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
von Essen, L 2004 Proxy ratings of patient quality of life — factors related to patient proxy agreement. Acta Oncologica 43: 229–234CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Whiteneck, GG, Charlifue, SW, Frankel, HL, Fraser, MH, Gardner, BP, Gerhart, KA, Krishnan, KR, Menter, RR, Nuseibeh, I, Short, DJ and Silver, JR 1992 Mortality, morbidity, and psychosocial outcomes of persons spinal cord injured more than 20 years ago. Paraplegia 30: 617–630Google ScholarPubMed
Williams, ML, Coleman, JE, Haire, SE, Aleman, TS, Cideciyan, AV, Sokal, I, Palczewski, K, Jacobson, S and Semple-Rowland, SL 2006 Lentiviral expression of retinal guanylate cyclase-1 (RetGC1) restores vision in an avian model of childhood blindness. PLoS Medicine 3(6): e201. Epub May 23, 2006CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Withrow, SJ and Hirsch, VM 1979 Owner response to amputation of a pet's leg. Veterinary Medicine — Small Animal Clinician 74: 332–334Google ScholarPubMed