Psychometric properties of the WHOQOL-BREF questionnaire for the Norwegian general population

In 1994, the World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL) Group developed the procedure (the WHOQOL 100) to measure quality of life in healthy and ill persons from diverse cultures. The purpose of this study was to analyze the psychometric properties of a 26-item version of the WHOQOL 100, the WHOQOL-BREF, when applied to the Norwegian general population. The questionnaire was sent to 4,000 randomly selected Norwegian citizens aged 19 to 81 years. The response rate was 48.5%. Cronbach's alpha ranged from .60 in the social relationships domain to .84 in the physical health domain. Factor analysis resulted in a four-component solution partly supporting the established domain structure. Multiple regression analysis with sex, age, education, cohabitation and self-reported disease as independent variables explained 28%, 8%, 4%, and 15% of the variance for the physical health, psychological, social relationships and environmental domains, respectively. Self-reported disease was the strongest factor. The results appear to be promising regarding scaling qualities, discriminative power, and domain structure.