Most of the evidence concerns the SF-36 and EQ-5D , and for these instruments there was evidence for known group validity .
Although the evidence base is limited in a number of important respects , including problems with the measures used to develop constructs in the validation studies , it is sufficient to raise doubts about the use of generic measures of health like the EQ-5D and SF-36 in patients with schizophrenia
OBJECTIVES Generic health status measures such as the short form health survey ( SF-36 ) and EuroQol-5D ( EQ-5D ) are increasingly being used to inform health policy .
They are cl aim ed to be applicable across disease areas and have started to be used within mental health research .
This review aims to assess the construct validity and responsiveness of four generic health status measures in schizophrenia , including the preference-based SF-6D and EQ-5D .
Quality of life during treatment with haloperidol or olanzapine in the year following a first psychotic episode
OBJECTIVES Schizophrenia causes significant impairments of quality of life . As treatment approaches have advanced , more attention has been given to re-integrating patients into their psychosocial environments , rather than simply monitoring psychotic symptoms . The development of the second-generation antipsychotics raised hope that these medications would provide better quality of life improvement than conventional antipsychotics . This improvement is particularly relevant early in the course of schizophrenia . METHODS To address these considerations , improvements in measures of general health and social function ( determined using the SF-36 ) were assessed in 195 patients with first-episode schizophrenia for up to one year following r and omization to either olanzapine or haloperidol  in a double blind clinical trial . We hypothesized that olanzapine would demonstrate better improvement on these measures than haloperidol . In order to test this hypothesis , we used a repeated measure model with SF-36 scores as the outcome , and treatment group , time , time2 , time-by-treatment group interaction , and time2-by-treatment group interaction as fixed effects . RESULTS Both treatments demonstrated similar changes on the SF-36 . Independent of treatment , patients demonstrated significant improvements in most of the SF-36 subscales , which approached normative scores by the end of one year of treatment . Forty-six of 100 olanzapine-treated patients and 37 of 95 haloperidol-treated patients completed the one year of this study ( p<.4 ) . CONCLUSIONS These results suggest an important initial treatment goal for patients with new onset schizophrenic disorders , namely that they can expect to recover significant quality of life and social function at least initially in treatment
Most of the evidence concerns the SF-36 and EQ-5D , and for these instruments there was evidence for known group validity .
Although the evidence base is limited in a number of important respects , including problems with the measures used to develop constructs in the validation studies , it is sufficient to raise doubts about the use of generic measures of health like the EQ-5D and SF-36 in patients with schizophrenia
OBJECTIVES Generic health status measures such as the short form health survey ( SF-36 ) and EuroQol-5D ( EQ-5D ) are increasingly being used to inform health policy .
They are cl aim ed to be applicable across disease areas and have started to be used within mental health research .
This review aims to assess the construct validity and responsiveness of four generic health status measures in schizophrenia , including the preference-based SF-6D and EQ-5D .