Older People's Quality of Life Questionnaire

The Older People's Quality of Life Questionnaire (OPQOL) is a 35-item multidimensional self-report measure of quality of life developed by Ann Bowling and distinguished by its lay, bottom-up origins. Rather than imposing expert-defined domains, the OPQOL was derived from what older people themselves said made their lives good or bad, drawn from in-depth interviews and survey research in British populations. The items span domains including life overall, health, social relationships, independence and control, home and neighbourhood, psychological and emotional wellbeing, financial circumstances, leisure and activities, and religion or culture. Each item is rated on a five-point agreement scale and the items are summed into subscale and total scores. In her 2009 paper, Bowling reported the questionnaire's psychometric properties and compared it directly with two established older-adult measures, CASP-19 and the WHOQOL-OLD. The OPQOL is valued for grounding quality of life in older people's own priorities while remaining broad enough to cover health, social, and material life.