[Biomedicine and the quality of life. A theoretical analysis]

The notions of illness (subjective feeling), disease (technical labeling) and sickness (societal evaluation) are used for highlighting the fact that they constitute semantic spaces which may not coincide. Several factors explain the predominance of biomedical thinking, which must be construed as a cultural system in order to permit an appraisal of its strengths and weakness in relation to others (popular and folk). Quality of life, as a research area, emphasizes the illness side of the health care system, and may be defined as the tension between expectations and results. It is pointed out that a sound health-care system should strive for a comprehensive multidimensionality integrating technical, personal and societal points of view.