Feasibility of Routine Quality of Life Measurement for People Living With Dementia in Long-Term Care

Maximizing quality of life (QoL) is the ultimate goal of long-term dementia care. However, routine QoL measurement is rare in nursing home (NH) and assisted living (AL) facilities. Routine QoL measurement might lead to improvements in resident QoL. Our objective was to assess the feasibility of using DEMQOL-CH, completed by long-term care staff in video calls with researchers, to assess health-related quality of life (HrQoL) of NH and AL residents with dementia or other cognitive impairment. Cross-sectional study. We included a convenience sample of 5 NHs and 5 AL facilities in the Canadian province of Alberta. Forty-two care staff who had worked in the facility for ≥3 months completed DEMQOL-CH assessments of 183 residents who had lived in the facility for 3 months or more and were aged ≥65 years. Sixteen residents were assessed independently by 2 care staff to assess inter-rater reliability. We assessed HrQoL in people with dementia or other cognitive impairment using DEMQOL-CH, and assessed time to complete, inter-rater reliability, internal consistency reliability, and care staff ratings of feasibility of completing the DEMQOL-CH. Average time to complete DEMQOL-CH was