[Quality of life and osteoarthritis. Values and applications]

Health status is commonly appreciated with classical clinical, laboratory, or radiographic features. Quality of life measurement has been recently included in the health status evaluation in order to appreciate how individuals perceive the impact of their disease as a whole. Although osteoarthritis is the most common rheumatologic disorder, studies including quality of life as an outcome in this disease are scant. Most likely explanations are the heterogeneity of osteoarthritis, and the fact that the majority of clinicians considers that pain, functional status, and quality of life are highly correlated. Quality of life measurement could be useful in the study of future anti-rheumatic drugs, and osteoarthritis disease course. The selection of the most appropriate quality of life instrument is difficult, and both generic and disease specific health status measures are worthy. Most of the quality of life instruments have been developed in English, and their use in a foreign language should require a translation, an adaptation, and a careful study of validity before they could be used widely.