Background: Medical and scientific committees need validated instruments to assess quality of life, but the lack of general population norms limits their full use in research and clinical practice. This study aimed to determine norms for the French general population for the physical and psychological health and social relationship dimensions of the abbreviated version of WHOQOL-BREF questionnaire in a large representative community sample.
Methods: A sample of 16,450 randomly selected subjects 18-75 years old, in two steps: households and individuals, was drawn from the National Health Barometer 2005, a periodic study by the French National Institute for Preventive and Health Education. Quality of life and other characteristics were collected using a computer-assisted telephone interview by use of a booklet.
Results: Internal consistency was good. Normative data for the French population are analyzed by age, sex and self-reported chronic disease.
Conclusions: Our data provide normative scores for the general French population for three of four dimensions of the WHOQOL-BREF that can be useful to researchers using this measure of health-related quality-of-life assessment and to clinical practitioners.