Background: Quality of life has become an important issue in evaluating clinical research outcomes, and in relationship to cost containment and managed care issues.
Methods: The literature on quality of life was reviewed to give the practicing optometrist an overview of the issue.
Results: Quality of life embraces a wide range of physical and psychological characteristics that describe a person's functional ability. There is no agreed upon definition of quality of life. This lack of agreement has led most researchers to adopt a multidimensional approach toward assessing quality of life since no single parameter has ever proven to be adequate.
Conclusion: Quality of life measurement is an important issue in health care research and policy. In the future, awareness of quality of life issues will be of increasing importance for the optometrist.