Yet health is just one domain of the QOL construct. Not only are such constructs limited to health, but their method of calculation lies within an alien frame of reference to mainstream QOL research. A good definition should be explicit in terms of its operationalization. This requirement is not met by a surprising number of authors and, of course, operationalization is necessary in order for a definition to have heuristic value. Objective domains comprise culturally relevant measures of objective well being.
Subjective domains comprise domain satisfaction weighted by importance.
As can be seen, this definition is consistent with all of the previously suggested definitional requirements and specifies seven domains. The objective domains are measured through three items each, that aggregate to a single domain score. The domain scores can be summed to yield a single measure of objective well-being. Each subjective domain is measured through two questions, one relating to the level of domain satisfaction and the other to domain importance. The product of these two scores yields a measure of subjective life quality for each domain, and the seven domain scores can be summed to provide the single measure of subjective well being.