In the past years, many students had problems with their finances, especially their expenses for education. Many of the students are affected by the crisis financially, emotionally, and by their wellbeing. That is why the government provides programs that will help the students with their problems with school expenses, and that is through the Tertiary Education Subsidy (TES) of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED). Further, the primary goal of this study is to explore the TES Grantees' lived experiences, challenges, (...) and coping mechanisms. Furthermore, these are the study's findings: (1) The grantees find the TES very helpful regarding finances that will tackle their academic needs, such as tuition fees and school learning materials. (2) Many students value government assistance that motivates them to maintain their grades. (shrink)

Quality of life is part of many different discourses and has been used in a variety of meanings ranging from purely descriptive (as in some medical contexts) to distinctly evaluative meanings (as in some social science and political contexts). The paper argues that there are good normative reasons to make the concept as descriptive as possible at least in its medical applications and, furthermore, to reconstruct it in a thoroughgoing subjectivist way, making the reflexive self-evaluation of the subject him- (...) or herself the ultimate standard. Attention is drawn to the fact that only few of the measures of quality of life applied in present-day medicine correspond to these requirements. (shrink)

The odds of encountering a senior citizen selling on the street have increased. The claim that they have no choice but to work and sell on the street, despite the dangers, illnesses, and psychological issues they may face, to provide for their family’s needs is very evident. Therefore, this study explores the quality of life, lived experiences, challenges, and coping mechanisms of senior citizen street vendors in Bulacan, Philippines. The study employed Heideggerian Phenomenology and Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Moreover, (...) the following themes arise (1) Golden years, (2) Socially connected, and (3) Unknown journey. These themes highlighted the experiences and challenges faced by the participants. Moreover, it is highly suggested that local government agencies enhance and strictly monitor the existing program that alleviates mental and physical health concerns and senior citizens' safety and financial assistance. (shrink)

Richard Kraut presents a new theory of human well-being. Kraut's principal idea, Aristotelian in spirit, is that 'external goods' have at most an indirect bearing on the quality of our lives. A good internal life - one with quality emotional, intellectual, social, and perceptual experiences - is what well-being consists in.

The technological advances in medicine, including prolongation of life, have constituted several dilemmas at the end of life. In the context of the Belgian debates on end-of-life care, the views of Muslim women remain understudied. The aim of this article is fourfold. First, we seek to describe the beliefs and attitudes of middle-aged and elderly Moroccan Muslim women toward withholding and withdrawing life-sustaining treatments. Second, we aim to identify whether differences are observable among middle-aged and elderly women’s attitudes toward withholding (...) and withdrawing life-sustaining treatments. Third, we aim to explore the role of religion in their attitudes. Fourth, we seek to document how our results are related to normative Islamic literature. Qualitative empirical research was conducted with a sample of middle-aged and elderly Moroccan Muslim women living in Antwerp and with experts in the field. We found an unconditional belief in God’s sovereign power over the domain of life and death and in God’s almightiness. However, we also found a tolerant attitude, mainly among our middle-aged participants, toward withholding and withdrawing based on theological, eschatological, financial and quality of life arguments. Our study reveals that religious beliefs and worldviews have a great impact on the ethical attitudes toward end-of-life issues. We found divergent positions toward withholding and withdrawing life-sustaining treatments, reflecting the lines of reasoning found in normative Islamic literature. In our interviews, theological and eschatological notions emerged as well as financial and quality of life arguments. (shrink)

The aim of the present paper is to describe three different attempts, which have been made by philosophers, to define what quality of life is; and to spell out some of the difficulties that faces each definition. One, Perfectionism, focuses on the capacities that human beings possess: capacities for friendship, knowledge and creative activity, for instance. It says that the good life consists in the development and use of these capacities. Another account, the Preference Theory, urges that satisfying one's (...) preferences, or desires, is what improves one's quality of life. And a third account, Hedonism, sees life-quality as consisting in the enjoyment of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. The paper describes and evaluates objections to each of these views, thereby displaying their weaknesses and strengths. Since no view comes out as the right one there is a choice to be made. At the end of the paper it is being discussed how well each of the views cohere with different methodologies used in quality of life research. Also it is suggested that considerations about what the research is to be used for are relevant. (shrink)

This article proposes a novel strategy, one that draws on insights from antidiscrimination law, for addressing a persistent challenge in medical ethics and the philosophy of disability: whether health systems can consider quality of life without unjustly discriminating against individuals with disabilities. It argues that rather than uniformly considering or ignoring quality of life, health systems should take a more nuanced approach. Under the article's proposal, health systems should treat cases where quality of life suffers because of (...) disability-focused exclusion or injustice differently from cases where lower quality of life results from laws of nature, resource scarcity, or appropriate tradeoffs. Decisionmakers should ignore quality-of-life losses that result from injustice or exclusion when ignoring them would improve the prospects of individuals with disabilities; in contrast, they should consider quality-of-life losses that are unavoidable or stem from resource scarcity or permissible tradeoffs. On this proposal, while health systems should not amplify existing injustice against individuals with disabilities, they are not required to altogether ignore the potential effects of disability on quality of life. (shrink)

Medical decision making relies heavily on the notion of the quality of a person's life in providing a reason to utilize one therapy over another or to withhold certain therapies altogether. The concept of quality of life, however, lacks clear definition as well as consensus on its constitutive elements. ;Chapter one engages a basic controversy in the literature: whether 'quality of life' should be understood as a subjective concept, or whether objective "lists" can help us assess a (...) person's quality of life. Chapter two examines whether anthropological data might provide guidance. While it is often argued that anthropological data supports relativism, John Finnis argues that anthropological data supports universalism which, in turn, bolsters objectivist claims. I argue that anthropological data may plausibly be interpreted to support either subjective or objective accounts, and thus, does not settle our approach to quality of life. ;Chapter Three examines objective list theories, in particular those of Bernard Gert and John Finnis. I find Gert's account to be problematic because it seems incomplete. Finnis's criteria, too, seems ultimately indefensible. Thus, I conclude that while objectivist claims may offer insight into human values and motivations, existing accounts are flawed. Chapter Four examines subjective accounts of quality of life. I focus on "preference satisfaction" accounts. While these accounts provide intuitively plausible descriptions, they fall victim to a host of difficulties. Perhaps the best example of this is the "fleeting preferences" problem, which undermines our confidence in making life-and-death decisions on the basis of quality of life considerations. ;The concluding chapter offers that much progress can be made by understanding quality of life in terms of finding meaning in life. Thus, the quality of one's life is determined by how much purpose and meaning is found in that life. While this notion is not without its problems, it does capture the complex elements of the kinds of cases in which we are particularly interested, and combines some of the best features of both the objective and subjective accounts. (shrink)

The Quality of Life: Aristotle Revised, by KrautRichard. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. x + 249.

Quality of life is a difficult concept to define and to measure. An hypothesis is proposed which suggests that the quality of life measures the difference, or the gap, at a particular period of time between the hopes and expectations of the individual and that individual's present experiences. Quality of life can only be described by the individual, and must take into account many aspects of life. The approach is goal-orientated, and one of task analysis. The hypothesis (...) is developed in a diagramatic way, and several methods of testing the hypothesis suggested. (shrink)

into treatment decisions is viewed as pernicious by some who claim that these presuppose the Nazi position that those who are ‘devoid of value’ must be exterminated. ‘Quality of life’ judgments are said to deny the equal value of human beings and to assume that some lives are not ‘worthy to be lived’. It is argued that the analogy misconstrues the senses of ‘value’ and ‘quality’ employed by Naziism and a ‘quality of life’ position. This leads the (...) analogizers incorrectly to claim that both views assimilate the value of human beings to the value of their condition. A ‘quality of life’ position is grounded in recognition of the logical priority of the value of human beings as self-reflective evaluators and agents, which is a matter of kind, not degree. The ‘quality of life’ is explicated in terms of the standards of well-being of individuals, which are derived from their basic human needs and their individual priorities and goals. The use of ‘quality of life’ judgments is morally required to ensure that considerations of justice and individual autonomy govern treatment decisions. The purported analogy misconstrues the views of both the Nazi position and a ‘quality of life’ position and so is seriously misdirected. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Under the Second Demographic Transition, alternative forms of living arrangement are on the rise. The aim of this article is to compare quality of life in children living in married and cohabiting families. We present the results of representative research conducted in Slovakia in 2018 (N = 1,010 respondents). We tested whether children brought up in traditional married families had better material resources and healthcare, fewer behavioural problems, better peer relations and spent more leisure time with their parents than (...) children brought up by cohabiting parents. We also investigated whether number of children in the family and net monthly household income affected the children’s quality of life. The results show that there were almost no differences in quality of life between children brought up by married and by cohabiting parents and that number of children in the family and level of net monthly household income affected only the child’s material resources. (shrink)

Introduction. Cities play a key role in the development of countries and regions. The authors of the article emphasize the importance of the largest cities’ development, which is based on an industrial model that has not exhausted its potential. The authors show possibilities of urban development on the basis of the industrial sector effective functioning in order to improve the citizens’ welfare, meet their needs and improve the life quality. In this regard, the authors formulate a hypothesis that the (...) largest Russian cities developing according to the industrial model have and are able to realize their potential in order to improve the life quality, preserve and increase the population on their territory. The authors set a goal: to identify the possibilities for developing industrial-type megalopolises to improve the population’s life quality of the (PLQ). Methods. The authors use the following information base: strategic documents of different levels, statistical data, scientific literature, analytical documents, and expert assessments of the megalopolises’ development. The authors also use an industrial model for developing the largest cities; they determine conditions under which the potential of megacities can be realized to improve the citizens’ life quality and carry out an analysis of the demographic and social situation in the largest Russian industrial cities. The authors evaluate some approaches and theses of the study as exemplified by the following cities with a million-plus population: Yekaterinburg, Krasnoyarsk, Chelyabinsk, and Omsk and they group the cities according to the signs of growth and decline, which is illustrated by favorable or unfavorable demographic trends. To confirm the identified trends and problems of the largest cities, the authors provide the results of expert assessments on the population’s life quality and the state of the urban environment and emphasize the need for a systemic integrated development of the largest cities of industrial type to improve the life quality of the population of megalopolises. The scientific novelty of the study consists in substantiating the prospects for the socio-economic development of the largest industrial cities of Russia on the basis of an industrial model that provides for the technological transformation of the economy, the use of agglomeration effects, the formation of a friendly urban environment for residents and the achievement of socialization of urban space. Results and conclusions. As a result of the analysis and typology of the largest cities by functional specialization, two groups of cities were identified: one group with signs of demographic growth, the second with signs of decline. The cities of the first group have a greater economic potential, opportunities for agglomeration, provide more comfortable living and consolidation of the population on their territory. On the contrary, cities with signs of decreasing have fewer opportunities (resources), are less diversified, the urban environment in them is less comfortable, which is reflected in the citizens’ life quality and is accompanied by the population’s outflow. At the same time, it was revealed that all analyzed cities actively use digital technologies, realizing, in particular, the concept of a «smart city». At the same time, cities with signs of decreasing show high IQ indicators of cities. Taking into account the identified problems, the authors propose promising directions for the development of industrial megalopolises with signs of decline. (shrink)

Due to advances in medicine, a malignant neoplasm is a chronic disease that can be treated for a lot of patients for many years. It may lead to profound changes in everyday life and may induce fear of life. The ability to adjust to a new situation may depend on temperamental traits and stress coping strategies. The research presented in this paper explores the relationships between quality of life, PTSD symptoms, temperamental traits, and stress coping in a sample of (...) patients diagnosed with cancer. One hundred and twenty nine participants aged 24–81 years, 69 females diagnosed with breast cancer and 60 males diagnosed with lung cancer completed Formal Characteristics of Behavior – Temperament Inventory, Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations, PTSD Inventory, and Quality of life SF-36 questionnaire. Higher level of emotional reactivity and higher level of perseveration was associated with lower emotional quality of life. Higher level of emotion oriented-coping and higher level of avoidant-distracted coping was associated with higher level of PTSD symptoms. Emotion-oriented coping and avoidant-distracted coping are ineffective in dealing with stress in the case of patients diagnosed with cancer, because they are associated with a higher level of PTSD symptoms. The significance of temperamental traits for quality of life in the situation of the patients is marginal. Control of specific factors concerned with current health and treatment status is needed the future research. (shrink)

Quality improvement mechanisms increasingly use outcome measures to evaluate health care providers. This move toward outcome measures is a radical departure from the traditional focus on process measures. More radical still is the proposal to shift from relatively simple and proximal measures of outcome, such as mortality, to complex outcomes, such as quality of life. While the practical, scientific, and ethical issues associated with the use of outcomes such as mortality and morbidity to compare health care providers have (...) been well rehearsed, the specific concerns associated with the use of quality of life measures in quality of care research have received little attention. As with much research on quality of life there is a tendency to assume that the disadvantages are outweighed by the general virtue of “listening” to patients. In this paper we disagree with this assumption and argue that quality of life is a process, not an outcome. (shrink)

The growth of individuals and society heavily relies on education. Certain hindrances may prompt some students to halt their academic pursuits temporarily. This is known as "Balik-aral." The exploration of the quality of life, lived experiences, and challenges of grade 12 Balik-aral students was undertaken by the authors to break their silence and help them by developing recommendations that could be presented to the school's key stakeholders. A phenomenological approach was used to understand the phenomenon in a study involving (...) five grade 12 balik-aral students from different strands currently enrolled in a public school in Cebu City, Philippines. A structured interview was used to collect data, and significant themes emerged during data analysis using Colaizzi's method. The study revealed several sub-themes, including age disparities and pressure to obtain the diploma while maintaining quality of life. Additionally, key informants emphasized the sense of community and an immersive learning environment in their lived experiences as balik-aral students. Finally, competing priorities and scarcity of resources emerged as significant challenges for those involved in the study. Consequently, the investigation has determined that balik-aral students must be treated equitably to foster their engagement with their peers and enhance their self-assurance, ultimately leading to academic success. (shrink)

There is no technical language with which to speak of patients' quality of life, there are no standard measures and no authority to validate criteria of measurement. It is well known that 'professionals' tend, often for institutional reasons, to play down or undervalue factors which are not defined by their particular expertise. It is fortunate that, despite this tendency, there is a growing interest in broadening the evaluation of medical care, but there is still a need to clarify what (...) is at issue in considerations of quality of life. This article examines the strengths and weaknesses of one approach to assessing quality of life, and sketches out the implications for anyone concerned to establish a framework within which both medical and non-medical objectives of care can be taken into account. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has had unprecedented effects on our daily lives. This study aimed to assess the quality of life at two time points during the COVID-19 pandemic with lockdown restrictions according to gender, age, and urbanization level. Qualtrics® recruited representative Austrian population samples in April 2020 and December 2020/January 2021. ANOVAs and the Bonferroni-corrected post-hoc tests were conducted to investigate differences between April and December 2020 and to compare with pre-pandemic data. Although the quality of life changed (...) from pre-pandemic to April 2020, there were no significant changes between April and December. Living location, gender, and age showed an effect on the quality of life. All domains of quality of life have decreased since the onset of the pandemic, and this decline has been maintained over the course of the first year of the pandemic. Creative measures should be implemented to assist people in improving one or more areas of quality of life, within the lockdown restrictions to improve the overall wellbeing of the population. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship between disability and quality of life and some of its implications for bioethics and healthcare. It focuses on the neglected perfectionist approach that ties well-being to the flourishing of human nature, which provides the strongest support for the common view of disability as a harm. After critiquing the traditional Aristotelian version of perfectionism, which excludes the disabled from flourishing by prioritizing rationalistic goods, I defend a new version that prioritizes the social capacities of human (...) nature and the goods of personal relationship. This relationship-centered perfectionism is able to accommodate and explain disabled thriving. I also show how these issues have important implications for specific bioethical debates and clinical practices, using a cluster of issues related to Down syndrome as timely illustrations. My goal is to sketch a perfectionist theory that gives a more plausible account of the relationship between disability and well-being, and that provides better practical guidance in cases involving judgments about the quality of disabled lives. (shrink)

Substitute decision-makers for severely disabled neonates who can be kept alive but who will require constant medical interventions and will die at the latest in their teens are faced with a difficult decision when trying to decide whether to keep the infant alive. By and large, the primary focus of their decision-making centers on what is in the best interests of the newborn. The best-interests criterion, in turn, is importantly conditioned by quality-of-life considerations. However, the concept of quality (...) of life is logically and ethically different for patients with a developing as opposed to a developed awareness. Unfortunately, this difference is ignored by current quality-of-life considerations, there are no quality-of-life measures that take this difference into account, and decision-making proceeds entirely without acknowledging this fact. This note outlines why this is a problem and why there is a need for a new set of tools that incorporates this distinction if the substitute decision-makers are to apply the best-interest criterion in a meaningful way. (shrink)

Although healthcare workers play a crucial role in helping curb the hazardous health impact of coronavirus disease 2019, their lives and major functioning have been greatly affected by the pandemic. This study examined the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the quality of life of Malaysian healthcare workers and its predictive factors. An online sample of 389 university-based healthcare workers completed questionnaires on demographics, clinical features, COVID-19-related stressors, psychological experiences, and perceived social support after the movement lockdown was lifted. (...) All domains of QoL were within the norms of the general population except for social relationship QoL, which was lower than the norm. Multiple linear regression analysis indicated that COVID-19-related stressors and psychological sequelae predicted lower QoL. Conversely, greater perceived social support from friends and significant others predicted higher QoL. Clinical and demographic characteristics predicted QoL to a lesser extent: A history of pre-existing medical illness was associated only with lower physical health QoL, whereas older age and being single, divorced, or widowed were only predictive of higher environmental QoL. Efforts to enhance QoL among healthcare workers in response to the pandemic should focus on mitigating COVID-19-related stressors and psychological sequelae and facilitating social support. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to examine differences in the quality of life as well as gratitude, meaning in life and positive orientation to life between diocesan and religious seminarians and secular students. The influence of religiosity on quality of life and subjective well-being is the subject of numerous studies, but seminarians have rarely been included in them. The present research was carried out for the first time with a group of diocesan and religious seminarians in Poland (...) and secular students. The study involved 296 participants—98 diocesan seminarians, 96 religious seminarians and 102 secular students in the control group. Results showed significant differences in the quality of life. Religious and diocesan seminarians scored higher than the control group members in the psychophysical, personal, psychosocial and metaphysical spheres. In addition, in terms of gratitude, and the presence of meaning in life, religious and diocesan seminarians achieved higher scores than the control group but lower scores in searching for the meaning in life. There were no significant differences between diocesan and religious seminarians except that only diocesan seminarians obtained significantly higher scores on positive orientation to life than the control group. Overall, results support the idea that seminarians have higher quality of life and subjective well-being than secular students. Research implications are discussed. (shrink)

Only in recent years have the German bioethical and biopolitical debates begun to decline due to rationalization concerning stem cell research or the pre-implantation diagnosis related to the ethical status of the beginning of human life. This is due to the fact that in these contexts we have to ask whether quality of life assessment is ethically acceptable in principle. A fundamental premise in the current debate is that quality of life assessment and human dignity are incompatible. In (...) this paper four different standards of quality of life assessment are distinguished (the naturalistic, the social, the interpersonal and the personal standard). Then an interpretation of human dignity is developed which rests on the essential feature of human beings to develop the capacity for personal autonomy. Finally it is argued that human dignity in this sense is compatible with quality of life assessments based on the personal and the interpersonal standard. (shrink)

A new word has recently entered the British medical vocabulary. What it stands for is neither a disease nor a cure. At least, it is not a cure for a disease in the medical sense. But it could, perhaps, be thought of as an intended cure for a medicosociological disease: namely that of haphazard or otherwise ethically inappropriate allocation of scarce medical resources. What I have in mind is the term ‘QALY’, which is an acronym standing for quality adjusted (...) life year. Just what this means and what it is intended to do I shall explain in due course. Let me first, however, set the scene. (shrink)

The main measure of quality of life is well-being. The aim of this article is to compare insights about well-being from contemporary philosophy with the practice-related opinions of palliative care professionals. In the first part of the paper two philosophical theories on well-being are introduced: Sumner’s theory of authentic happiness and Griffin’s theory of prudential perfectionism. The second part presents opinions derived from interviews with 19 professional palliative caregivers. Both the well-being of patients and the well-being of the carers (...) themselves are considered in this empirical exploration. In the third part the attention shifts from the description of “well-being” to prescriptions for the promotion of well-being. Our interview data are analysed in light of the theories of Sumner and Griffin for clues to the promotion of “well-being.” The analysis (1) underscores the subject-relativity of well-being, (2) points out that values that are considered important in every life still seem to be relevant (at least in palliative care practice), and (3) shows the importance of living a certain sort of life when aiming to enhance dying patients’ well-being. (shrink)

Recent work in the psychology of happiness has led some to conclude that we are unreliable assessors of our lives and that skepticism about whether we are happy is a genuine possibility worth taking very seriously. I argue that such claims, if true, have worrisome implications for procreation. In particular, they show that skepticism about whether many if not most people are well positioned to create persons is a genuine possibility worth taking very seriously. This skeptical worry should not be (...) confused with a related but much stronger version of the argument, which says that all human lives are very bad and not worth starting. I criticize the latter stance, but take seriously the former stance and hope it can be answered in future work. (shrink)

This study brings together two important literatures together in the one volume. One concerns the role of quality assessments in social policy, especially health policy. The second concerns ethical and social issues raised by prenatal testing for disability. Hitherto, these two literatures have had little contact with each other: few scholars have written about both, or have compared the two domains in a systematic way, while people with disabilities and disability scholars are underrepresented in recent discussion on health policy (...) and quality of assessment. This book turns the perspectives of disability scholars on issues that have largely been the province of health methodology, policy and philosophy, while angling philosophical policy analysis on problems that have largely been the province of disability scholarship. This volume will be sought after by bioethicists, philosophers, and specialists in disability studies and healthcare economics. (shrink)

Persons with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities cannot speak about their Quality of Life, which makes it necessary to involve others. In current approaches, these ‘others’ are seen as assessors trying to describe QoL as objectively as possible, which involves a reduction of their experiences, through which they develop knowledge on the QoL of the person with PIMD. The objective of this paper is to give caregivers’ knowledge on the QoL of a person with PIMD a theoretical basis that (...) values these experiences. We will argue that caregivers should be seen as witnesses, not assessors, and their statements on QoL as testimonies, not assessments. Audiences judge the trustworthiness of these witnesses intersubjectively, which implies a relationship characterized by trust and suspicion. Trust supports the witness to tell in her own words about the QoL of the person with PIMD; it demands receptivity, indicating that both the witness and the audience are willing to reconsider their perspective on QoL. Suspicion is necessary too, which helps the witness to critically approach her own interpretations and supports her to create more trustworthy testimonies. We conclude that the concept of witnessing helps to acknowledge caregivers’ experiential knowledge of QoL of a person with PIMD, which may also apply to other persons who cannot speak about their own QoL. We hope that our study will empower caregivers to give testimonies on QoL of a person with PIMD, which is crucial when complex decisions about the life of this person have to be made. (shrink)

The basic work for this book was carried out during the spring of 1989 in Edinburgh, where I had been granted a research position at The Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities. I should like to express here my indebtedness to the Institute for the opportunity thus afforded me. I should also like to say how very grateful I am for the stimulating conversations I had there with Professor Timothy Sprigge and Dr. Elizabeth Telfer. Dr. Telfers’s own treatise Happiness (...) has been a major influence on my view of the questions involved. The basic view of health and illness presented in this book is more fully set out in my On the Nature of Health. As in the case of my previous larger projects, I have received a great amount of support and may wise comments from Professor Ingmar Pörn, Helsinki. Three Danish experts – Anton Aggernaes, Erik Ostenfeld and Peter Sandøe – have made valuable comments. Professor Heng ten Have, Nijmegen, has improved my reading of the philosophy of Jeremy Bentham. I should also like to thank my colleagues at the Department of Health and Society, University of Linköping, for helping me to avoid a number of the pitfalls that can so easily stumble into when it comes to a treatise like this. Especially I should like to mentioned Per-Erik Liss, Ingemar Nordin and Bo Petersson, all three of whom have read and commented on the entire manuscript. A Swedish version of this book, Livskvalitet och hälsa, came out in 1991. I have been made quite a number of corrections and additions, one type of addition being replies to critical points made in reviews of the Swedish version. I should like to thank Malcolm Forbes for valuable help putting my English into publishable condition. Linköping, May 1993 Lennart Noredenfelt. (shrink)